Road To The Cup – Week 14

Road To The Cup – Week 14

Top 10 as of 8/29/21

Nine boats made it out for an absolutely picture-perfect Thursday night. Take a look.

Sure, it was a little light, but hey, it’s a Thursday night. Anyway, here is our report, this week from Walter Colsman, with an assist from John Casler.

“A hot inland day set the stage for a warm, sunny twilight race with mild southerly breeze. The RC began with 23, but then backed to mark 20, the nun in front of Children’s Island, once around. The race began with a swift outgoing tide and a ‘square downwind’ start which led to nine boats spread out across the line. And so the drag race began. Team Martini [who started right] took an early lead on a dead run straight for the mark. However, near the lighthouse the wind began to wane, slowing the boats closest to that end. Meanwhile Walter Colsman and Rob Ferro started at the pin and took a route straight out of the harbor and managed to pick up a breeze that did not reach the rest of the pack. Colsman rounded Mark 20 with a comfortable lead, but fouled his jib sheet (drawback to single-handing!), letting Ferro catch up and take the lead. A tacking duel ensued, and Colsman managed to retake the lead to finish 1^st ahead of Rob Ferro in 2^nd. Meanwhile Anne Marije Veenland, sailing her ever-faster grey boat solo – came steaming out of nowhere to finish 3^rd.” John Casler added, “I was 4^th, trailing Anne Marije across from the fort toward the finish with Mike Lane coming on strong as the two of us finished.”

Thanks guys. All I can add is that, so bad was the right on the first leg, the majority of the very astute Town Class, shown precisely where not to go, stayed left and rounded in front of most of the Rhodes Fleet – despite starting three minutes later. As an aside, current RTTC leader Mike Lane is one of the teams that was surely frustrated by choosing right. I wonder if that was lingering impact of his decision to tempt fate by crossing the finish line in the Nationals practice race, but I digress.

So for the record, taking 1^st was Walter Colsman sailing solo. Finishing 2^nd just behind him was Rob Ferro, and taking 3^rd was Anne Marije Veenland, also sailing solo. Honorable mentions go to John Casler in 4^th and the unsuperstitious Mike Lane in 5^th. Congratulations to all.

For you scoreboard watchers, going into the final race of Series 2, Walter Colsman holds 1^st with 3 points, Mike Lane is in 2^nd with 6 points and Anne Marije Veenland is in 3^rd with 8 points. The complete picture for the Twilight overalls is below.

Out on the MRA line, six hearty teams pushed through their Nationals hangover for the final day of Series 3. After a week of high temps and light sea breezes, the forecast called for fresher, post frontal conditions of ENE 10-15 with gusts as high as 21 and 2 to 3 foot seas, all of which was to gradually diminish. The forecasters got the pressure right, but the seas were more in the 6+ range, at least early on. I have no direct knowledge of the sea state as the day wore on because we bailed after the ride out, but they were pretty impressive at 11am.

Beacuse we spent the afternoon on chores, I don’t have much nuance to share, but it’s clear that Team Frisch / Hourihan (with Bill Kaull filling in for Seamus) liked the conditions, as they rolled a 1-1-2 to win the day with 4 points. Well done. Taking 2^nd with a 2-2-1 for 5 points was Team Lane / Heffernan, and taking 3^rd was Team Noble, finishing a consistent 3-3-3 for 9 points. Honorable mentions go to Stefan Thibodeaux who took 4^th with a 6-4-4 for 14 points, and Walter Colsman in 5^th on a tiebreaker with a 4-DNS-DNS for 15 points. Anne Marije Veenland, who sailed two races before heading in, deserves a shout-out for sailing with her dog Olly. Congratulations to all (and Olly).

So with that, MRA Series 3 is in the books. Taking 1^st was Team Frisch / Hourihan with 15 points. Taking 2^nd was Team Lane / Heffernan with 22 points, and finishing 3^rd was Team Pandapas with 28 points. Honorable mentions to Team Noble in 4^th with 38 points, and Team Hooks / Pascal in 5^th on a tiebreaker with 49 points. What makes Team Hooks / Pascal’s 5^th all the more impressive was that they raced just one of the three days. Congratulations to all.

So in Cup competition, Team Lane / Heffernan finished another week atop the leader board and in fact pulled out a little. They head into the home stretch, including the Labor Day Series and Fall Series, up a substantial 38 points. While not insurmountable, it feels pretty solid. The fat lady hasn’t started warming up yet, but she’s definitely in the house. It’s worth keeping an eye on the race for 2^nd. Team Frisch / Hourihan leap-frogged three places from 5^th to 2^nd over the absent Teams Cooke / Kaznoski, Pandapas and Uhl, and just nine points currently separate positions 2 through 5. The top-10 are listed below.

Week 15 racing will include Twilight 2-6 on Thursday night, which is our last scored Twilight of the season, and the 2-day Labor Day regatta, aka MRA Series 4-1 and 4-2 on Saturday and Sunday.

Other News, Notices & Miscellaneous Scuttlebutt

2022 East Coasts & Nationals – In case you missed it, the 2022 East Coasts Championships will be in Manchester in June (bless them for taking another stab at it) and the Nationals will be in Chicago in mid-August.

Around Misery Race rescheduled for Sept 12^th – Hurricane Henri forced David Graham and CYC RC to postpone the ‘Around Misery Island Race’ to Sunday September 12^th, first gun at 1pm. Updated SIs will likely be available at the CYC or on the CYC web site. Hopefully everyone gets in for the 4:25 kick-off of Pats-Dolphins.

RTTC Reporters Needed for 9/11 & 9/12 – I won’t be able to sail either the Fall Series on September 11 or the Around Misery race on September 12, so am recruiting contributing reporters to tell us what happened. Here is your chance to see your name in lights alongside the legends of RTTC like John Casler and Steve Uhl. Simply write up no more than one paragraph that captures the spirit of the day (a picture wouldn’t hurt either) and email it to me at kpandapas@comcast.net no later than the evening following the race. Selection criteria will include brevity, humor and importantly, basic understanding of grammar and punctuation. Who knows – this could be your big break.

If You Spin, Send It In – No one wrote in this week to add to our spin total, but with a drifter on Thursday night and just six boats on Saturday, my guess is there were no spins The season count is below.

Savannah Needs Sails – Fleet Captain Doug Powelson of Savannah’s Fleet 49 wrote in looking for used sails. Their fleet operates a club-owned boat model so has need for a lot of sails. In his words, “Could you please ask your club members or other Rhodes 19 sailors if they have any used sails they would like to sell to our fleet? In Savannah we are sailing every weekend and our inventory of good quality sails is very low, especially spinnakers.” So if you have sails for sale, please reach out to Doug at dpwlsn@gmail.com. They’ll pay for shipping.

Mail Bag

We got a bunch of attaboy emails on Nationals directed to co-chairs Elise & Kim, most along the lines of this from Joe Fava. “Thank you each for a great regatta this past week. I’ve been on the organizing side of several events – but I’ve never both sailed and organized at the same event. I don’t know how you did it – but you did it really, really well. Thank you again.”

On last week’s Nationals Edition of RTTC, Joan Thayer shared this very generous thought. “And just when did Mr. Pandapas find the time to write a fabulous email? Kim keeps everyone together with these factual and funny sometimes emails. We can’t ever let him retire!”

–kp (kpandapas@comcast.net)