Road To The Cup – Week 13
*Road To The Cup – Week 13*
*Top-10 as of 8/16/15*
There was a lot of nationals stuff in the mailbag this week. For starters,
you can pick up your info package at
www.r19nationals.com/content/pdf/R19WelcomePacket.pdf and the NOR at
www.r19nationals.com/notice-of-race. The complete schedule is in the info
package but the quick & dirty looks like this.
Wednesday – Measurement
Thursday – Sail measurement, registration, practice race and annual meeting
Friday – Skippers meeting, racing and party at the home of *Martha & David
Martini*
Saturday – Racing, regatta dinner at CYC
Sunday – Racing, haul-out and awards
Additionally, *Josh Wheeler* has posted the measurement schedule online at
https://r19fleet5.org/2015/08/2015-nationals-measurement-schedule, so you
should definitely check that out. Also, if you need a third, a couple of
good options are available. One is *Shannon Lane*, who is a very
experienced former national champ who won with *Jerry Blouin* in 2001 and
been crewing ever since. The other is MIT sailor *Libby Zhang*. Libby is
a top crew at MIT who is smart, athletic and very light. She’s a little
inexperienced with chutes, but would learn quickly and be an ideal
lightweight crew. Let me know if you’re interested.
Four boats showed up again this past Thursday night, including *Team Casler*
, *Team Sheldon*, *Team Martini* and old *Kent Hallawell*, sailing with old
friend *Rob Hallawell*. At least that’s who I think showed up as reported
sail numbers didn’t entirely line up with the usual suspects. It doesn’t
much matter though, as you’ll see from *John Casler’s* hard-hitting wrap-up.
“Given the prospect of light air, the course was to the nun off the Fort,
then Can 1, then back – twice around. During the six-minute pre-start
sequence, a shifty 1 1/2 knot northwesterly battled a dying sea breeze of
about 1 1/4 knots and a smoking southwesterly blasting up harbor at about 3
knots. During those six minutes, the northwesterly prevailed for about a
minute, the dying sea breeze for 46 seconds, and the southwesterly for
about 29 seconds. The rest of the time there was no wind at all. Each
boat won the start, depending upon whether you evaluated 10, 20, 25, or 30
seconds after the start. The four boats chased the most baffling set of
shifts in my 38-year Twilight experience. Each of the four had a wide lead
at least a couple of times, and each was equally tanked two or three
times. It was not so much that there was no wind, but rather every
promising breeze ended in either a lift to nowhere, a header from hell or a
massive hole. After about 45 minutes with no one rounding (*though John
points out that was closest*), the RC wisely abandoned. Three minutes
later, the nicest breeze of the season filled in for the sail back to the
bar. Go figure. The Cobb Salad in the Harbor Room was great, as was the
Grolsch.”
To quote my thoughtful friend *Bill Dalton*, “*huhhh…*” Or as the
insightful *Jim Taylor* observed, “Good weather for paddle boarding.”
So out on the MRA line, we had a classic August hot summer day. It was a
perfectly reasonable sailing day with conditions that started with an
unconvincing, shifty, light air, will-the-boat-along southeasterly that
eventually gave way to a pretty convincing sea breeze in the 12-14 knot
range. Things were just getting interesting when the RC rightly called it
after two races due to the big purple clouds drifting across our sky. Hey,
that’s August in Marblehead, right?
Just 15 boats showed up, which while a better a turnout than last week,
still strikes me as a little light for the final Saturday before
nationals. Hey, I guess folks are putting a lot of stake in the practice
race on Thursday. Anyway, one of those boats was old friend *Dru Slattery*,
who after several weeks away doing who-knows-what, reintroduced herself in
convincing fashion, rolling a 1-4 for 5 points to win the day. It wasn’t
that long ago that Dru did that on a regular basis in the Sonar fleet, so
no surprises there. Welcome back Dru. Taking 2nd was *Team Pandapas, *joined
by Nationals 3rd *Renee Heffernen*, who rolled a 4-2 for 6 points. And
finishing 3rd was *Larry Ehrhardt*, who put up a 6-1 for 7 points.
Honorable mentions go to the *Peter Frisch*-less *Seamus Hourihan* who took
4th with a 2-7 for 9 points, narrowly beating on the tiebreaker *Chris
Small & Ian Peebles* who rolled a 3-6, also for 9 points. Congratulations
to all.
With Nationals next weekend, we won’t be participating in MRA Series 3, Day
4. So for us, that brings Series 3 to a close and enables me to pass along
what I assume are the final results. Taking 1st for their first series win
in longer than I can remember with 14 points was *Team Pandapas*. Every
dog has his day, right? Earning 2nd with his brand new Bubba-made
mast was *Larry
Ehrhardt *with 22 points, narrowly beating on the tiebreaker *Team
Pendleton/Raisides* in 3rd, also with 22 points. Finishing 4th with 25
points was *Team Frisch/Hourihan* and taking 5th was *Joe Fava &* *Elise
Mazereas* with 34.01 points. Interestingly, they managed to place 5th sailing
just one race. After winning the first race of the series two weeks ago,
they took their byes last week and DNCs this week. Talk about squeezing
value of a bullet!
So, in Cup competition, not a lot changed this week, though interestingly,
thanks to Series 3 throw-outs, *Team Frisch/Hourihan* added a little
cushion to their lead. The top-10 are listed below.
1st
1210
Hourihan / Frisch
208.29
2nd
1217
Pendleton / Raisides
222.75
3rd
982
Team Pandapas
254.86
4th
2585
Steve Uhl
279.86
5th
3172
Dave Nelson
293.00
6th
1683
Matt Hooks
308.00
7th
2623
Mike Lane
315.57
8th
2692
Team Heffernan
331.00
9th
1316
Fava / Mazareas
335.00
10th
1926
Team Taylor
336.00
Week 14 racing will include the practice race on Thursday and the three
days of Nationals Friday through Sunday. Huge thanks in advance to regatta
chair *Charlie Pendleton* and the multitudes who have worked for a year to
put this event together. Anyone who has done it can attest to how massive
an undertaking it is, and we owe them all a tip of the hat. –kp