Road To The Cup – Week 18

Road To The Cup – Week 18

Top-10 as of 9/25/16

 

The Fall Series continued with Day 2 on Saturday under fall conditions featuring sunny skies and a crisp cool northeasterly that wound its way to the east in the early afternoon.  The Rhodes were the only fleet to show up and there were just four of those.  With four boats, it’s probably a toss up as to whether racers outnumbered RC, but it had to be close.  I don’t know which RC volunteers served but huge thanks to them.

 

The RC got in three races.  Taking 1st on the day with a 1-2-1 for 4 points was Team Frisch/Hourihan.  Taking 2nd just a thin point back with a 2-1-2 for 5 points was Mike Lane.  And taking 3rd was old friend Ian Peebles, who put up a 3-3-4 for 10 points.  Honorable mention to Ann Souza who sailed to a 4-4-3 for 11 points.  Congratulations to all for carrying the banner into late September.  The top two boats are separated in the series by just a point, as Team Frisch/Hourihan leads Mike Lane 7 points to 8.  Stay tuned.

 

In other racing, last week featured two regattas in which Fleet 5 members sailed; the 2v2 Team Race in Marblehead and the Resolute Cup in Newport, and we have accounts of both.  First Joe Fava provides us this on the 2v2.

 

“Here are a couple of highlights.  Fleet 5ers sailing included Mike Lane, Beanie Eissner, Alex Israel, Matt Hooks, Ron Homa and guest fleet 5ers Adam Bookman and Spencer Powers.  We also had Emily Babbitt representing New Bedford YC who sails on Hey19, which is a local boat there.  After 78 races (yes, 78), Eastern YC came out on top followed by Wianno Yacht Club and Boston Yacht Club.  Other fleet 5ers involved included the Ken & Lisa Adam on race committee and Karen Lubeck who was the chief umpire.”

 

And Elise Nash provided this on the Resolute Cup.

 

“Every other year, NYYC hosts the Resolute Cup, an invitational fleet racing regatta which serves as a Corinthian keel-boat championship amongst US yacht clubs.  The five-day event is sailed in one-design keel-boats, with teams sailing qualifying series in both Sonars and Melges 20s.  The top 5 teams from each group then move to the Championship Series in Melges 20s and the remaining 20 teams compete in the silver fleet in Sonars.  In addition to intense competition of the event itself, teams are competing to receive an invitation to the Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup, an international event sailed in Swan 42’s the following year.

 

This September, two teams from Marblehead headed down to Newport to compete.  For the Eastern Yacht Club, represented by Bill Lynn, Tom Erskine and Alden Reid, this was the 4th appearance at the Resolute Cup, two of which resulted in an invitation to the Rolex Invitational Cup.  Past EYC competitors from Fleet 5 include Ben Richardson, Megan Watson Siegal and Charlie Pendleton.  The Corinthian Yacht club, represented by Will Bailey, Sam Madden and Fleet 5’ers Evan Cooke and Elise Mazareas Nash, were new to the event this year and one of the youngest teams competing.

 

After a mandatory practice day and two days racing in the Sonars and Melges 20s respectively, team CYC finished 6th, missing qualifying for the Gold Fleet by 7 points.  Team EYC, finishing 4th in the qualifying round, went on to the Gold Fleet where they finished 3rd overall, just two points behind second place Balboa Yacht Club, and 30 points behind Southern Yacht Club, who dominated in the Melges 20s.  Team CYC had a slow start in Silver Fleet, but finished strong, despite some very tight competition – so tight in fact that NYYC crowned CYC the winners of Silver Fleet, until they realized a math error that resulted in Bayview Yacht Club beating CYC by 1 point for the win, with CYC placing 2nd.  Disappointing to win, and then not win, but all in all a fantastic event hosted by NYYC, and Bayview’s champagne was delicious.  Looking forward to Resolute Cup 2018!

 

 

In Cup competition, there was one position change.  As expected, Mike Lane moved up to 4th pushing the absent Team Pandapas into 5th.  All other positions remain the same.  The top-10 are listed below.

 

 

Our season closes out next Saturday with the final day Fall Series, featuring CYCs annual Chowder Race.

 

Notices

Laser Masters Update  The Marblehead Laser fleet is gearing up for the Laser Masters Nationals on September 30-Oct 2.  If you’d like more info, visit the event web site.   Also in case you missed it, here is a repeat of the notice Tom Dailey & Patrick Andreasen sent out last week (with Tom’s email corrected).

 

“Our local Laser fleet is hosting over 110 sailors from across the U.S. and Canada next weekend for the Laser Masters Nationals at EYC.  We are looking for volunteers to provide housing, bodies to help with launching/returning AM and PM, and anyone that has a safety boat that they can provide (and drive!).

 

“The regatta starts next Friday AM (30th) and ends Sunday PM.  Please email Patrick Andreasen at andreasensail@gmail.com if you can help, or Tom Dailey at tomdailey15@gmail.com if you can house someone.”

 

MRA Awards Party  The MRA will host its annual awards party on the evening of Wednesday October 12th at 6:30 at the BYC.  Circle the date and please plan to come support this year’s R19 winner, Team Frisch/Hourihan, as well as the winners of the other fleets.

 

Fleet 5 Awards Party Date Change  Fleet 5’s Fall awards party will be held on Saturday November 12th.  The original date happens to be the same day as as the Halloween Team Race at EYC.  Several fleet 5 members will likely sail in that event, including Matt Hooks, Beanie Eisner, Tomas Hornos, Elise Nash, Joe Fava, Evan Cooke, Nat Taylor and others.  So we thought it made sense to move back a week to avoid the conflict.  The event will again be generously hosted Elise & Mike Nash, be potluck, feature the fleet bar and start at 6:30.  So circle the date and keep an eye out for your email invitation.

 

Outstanding Crew Award  Nominations are now being excepted for the 2016 Outstanding Crew Award.  Nominations must include a supporting paragraph describing why you think your nominee should win, and if it includes something funny or embarrassing, all the better.  Nominations will be considered by the Fleet leadership, who for the most part are above board and cannot be bought!  Send your nominations to kpandapas@comcast.net by October 28th (so we have time to do some engraving).

 

Nationals Photos  For those interested, there are over 500 photos of the 2016 Chicago Nationals at http://r19nationals.us/photos.  The pictures were contributed by RC members Chris Byrne, Mary Kovats, Liz Neumayer, Deanna Trejo, and by competitor Cheryl Siebert. They are uncropped and unprocessed, but are notable in that they provide evidence that on at least one occasion, 982 happened to be temporarily in front of 1217.

 

Mail Bag

Not much mail as the season winds down.

 

You may or may not have heard that Wendy Frisch had to spend a little time in the hospital recently, and Fleet 5 sent her some flowers.  Wendy wrote back: “Dear Fleet 5, Thank you ever so much for the beautiful flower arrangement.  Every day I feel a bit better and more like myself.  I am so grateful for the positive outcome of my surgery and even more grateful for the healing thoughts, well wishes and kindness of friends.  With many thanks, Wendy.”

 

Finally, we got this from John Casler, who is getting an early start on his off-season travels and appears to miss writing his Twilight updates.  Thursday report.  Wind up the fjord at 4-6.  No seas.  No race, but the reindeer steak was great.  See new developmental Stuart model in the photo.

 

 

-kp  (kpandapas@comcast.net)