Road To The Cup Week 2
*Road To The Cup – Week 2*
*Top-10 as of 5/31/15*
There was no racing on Thursday night due to thunderstorms. This from *John
Casler*, our man on the Twilight scene. “Three crews gathered at CYC to
watch the well anticipated storm sweep in. There were no boats with sails
up in the harbor. It became clear that the storm would pass through before
the new start time. The remaining questions were – Would there be enough
time to rig and get to the line? How damp and soggy would the boats be?
Would there be wind to sail in after the storm went through. When should
the decision be made? After back and forth discussion, no boats went out.
As it turned out, conditions would have been beautiful.” Oh well, what are
you going to do? Thanks John.
Out on the MRA line, mother natured dialed up a picture-perfect day that
looked a lot like last Sunday. Ten teams showed up, which is probably a
little light for the first day of MRA. But the forecast included a small
craft advisory and called for 15+ with gusts in the mid-20s, and that may
have scared off a boat or two. There were of course no 20-knot gusts.
Instead, we got a simply outstanding, sundrenched 10-15 knot southwesterly
augmented by a strong outgoing tide flowing in roughly the same direction.
Starboard tack approaches to the weather mark required a little
conservatism.
Alert sailors may have noticed that our ride this weekend had a little more
horsepower than usual. I wasn’t going to mention it, but as people keep
asking – 982 is in *Chris Small’s* shop getting fixed after a run-in with a
wind-blown crane pier gate last Sunday. Hopefully we’ll be back next week
– fingers crossed. This week’s ‘what-a-guy’ award goes to *Jeff Shoreman*,
who practically insisted we use his boat. That’s pretty generous, don’t
you think? Thanks Jeff.
As much as it sucked not to sail, I have to tell you that it was pretty
darn entertaining watching from the sidelines. It just amazes how much
more you see when not racing yourself. We saw some great starts, lots of
good tacking, some great mark roundings and a few really nice sets.
We saw *Hourihan
/ Frisch* get J70d multiple times in the same leg – painful. But we also
saw some really goofy stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I do goofy stuff all the
time, but some of this was just funny.
For example, we observed no fewer than five crossings where the ducking
boat blew the jib (not eased, blew). Now why on earth would you do that?
Don’t you want to use the jib to help turn the boat down? Another was the
fatal attraction syndrome. It seemed like the same boats kept duking it
out with the same boats over all three races. Why do you suppose that is?
But probably the dominant goofy theme of the day was boats sailing to the
wrong marks. Hey, who hasn’t done this – I’m certainly guilty. But on
this day, multiple boats sailed to multiple wrong marks, including two
boats that tried to finish at the starting pin. Hey, lots of wind shifts,
lots of course changes, a bunch of J70s in the mix – I get it. But, to
quote my 16 year old son, “Really?” Classy moment award goes to *Steve Uhl*.
He was one of two boats that sailed to the wrong weather mark in Race 2.
And as he sailed past us in DFL, he stood up in the boat, faced us and took
a bow. I’m still giggling about that.
I suppose my take-away of the day is that this was an outstanding first
outing for *Larry Ehrhardt*. Larry bought *Jerry Blouin’s* boat (2435),
which as most of you know was successfully campaigned for several decades
by *Kent Hallawell*. It was always a fast boat, improved now by Jerry’s
meticulous handwork. And it was pretty clear that Larry bonded with it,
making his presence felt in no uncertain terms. Yep, now there is yet
another boat you’d be dumb to lose track of on the race course – how
awesome is that?
Anyway, we got in three races. Congratulations to *Team Hourihan / Frisch* who
won the day with an impressive 1-1-2 for four total points. They were
really fast in this condition, but they also sailed very clean – crisp
tacks, nice roundings etc. Well done! Finishing 2nd on the day was *Larry
Ehrhardt*, who rolled a 2-2-3 for 7 points in his first day. What a great
kick-off for him. Taking 3rd was *Steve Uhl,* who put up a 3-8-1 for 12
points. He obviously didn’t let his wrong mark issue in race 2 affect his
race 3. Honorable mention goes to *Dru Slattery* who finished 4th with a
4-3-6 for 13 points. Dru led wire-to-wire in race 2 before, well – never
mind, don’t want to go there. Congratulations to all. *(By the way, the
online scores at last glance for some reason don’t include Hourihan /
Frisch, but I confirmed that they are properly registered and these results
are correct.)*
So in Cup competition, because there was no Thursday night, I have taken it
upon myself, without the scorer’s supervision, to add last week’s totals to
this week’s totals. It was a demanding math challenge and of course, my
apologies in advance for any screw-ups. *Hourihan / Frisch* leaped to the
top of the standing on the strength of their day-winning performance. And
despite not sailing the Spring Series, *Larry Ehrhardt* jumped right up to 8
th. The top-10 are listed below.
1st
1210
Hourihan / Frisch
20.00
2nd
1090
Dru Slattery
32.00
3rd
2585
Steve Uhl
38.00
4th
1217
Pendleton / Raisides
39.00
5th
2623
Mike Lane
46.00
6th
982
Team Pandapas
47.00
7th
1683
Matt Hooks
49.00
8th
2435
Larry Ehrhardt
52.00
9th
2495
David Rubin
60.00
10th
1316
Fava / Mazareas
61.00
Week 3 racing will include the Twilight race on Thursday night and the 2-3
races of MRA Series 1 Day 2 this Saturday. A quick reminder that the East
Coasts are in two weeks. I guarantee that they will be more fun than you
should be allowed to have with your pants on. If you haven’t registered,
do it now. –kp