Road
To The Cup – Week 10 – Race Week Edition
Top-10 as of 7/29/24
What You Need To Know
- Congratulations to Race Week winners
Adam Roberts and Alden Reid. - There will no Twilight on Thursday August 1st due to Town Class Nationals.
- MRA Series 3 starts Saturday August 3rd on South Line.
- The ‘Around Misery Island’ race will be Saturday August 17th.
- The Ted Hood Regatta will be Saturday – Sunday, August 17-18. Details below.
- Time to register for nationals, which will be August 22-25 in Hingham Bay. Details below.
Fleet 5 Race Week Party As you know, there was no twilight racing Thursday night due to Race Week. Instead, we were treated to
Jennifer & Steve Uhl’s gracious hospitality yet again! That’s about 20 straight years they have opened their home during Race Week, and as always, they pulled out all the stops. Many thanks to them, as well as to Fleet Bar Czar
Anne Marije Veenland for making sure we all got enough to drink. Here are a few shots of the festivities.
Last Week’s Racing
Junior Race Week – About 200 junior sailors racing 420s, Lasers and Optimists Dinghies descended on Pleon Yacht Club last Sunday for Marblehead Junior Race Week, the centerpiece of the junior racing schedule.
The three-day event was scheduled to run Monday through Wednesday, but regrettably, for the first time in anyone’s memory, was virtually a complete washout due to lack of wind. All boats were held ashore on Monday waiting for breeze that
never arrived. The fleets went out Tuesday, and again subsequently waited several hours before being towed back in without a race. The Opti Green line managed to get in one short race, but that was all. All fleets were again held ashore on Wednesday until
noon, when N over A was hoisted, bringing a merciful but disappointing end to what should have been a great event.
Below is a shot of Tuesday conditions from the CYC RC boat.
For the record, the 420 Champ and Opti Champ fleets were largest at 40 boats each, followed by the Opti Greens (29), 420 Greens (21) and Lasers (10). As always, the fleets were split into four lines, including 420s, Opti Greens, Opti Champs
and Lasers, run respectively by the race committees of EYC, BYC, CYC and MYC (Manchester Yacht Club). Between the race committees, safety boats and judges, there were no fewer than 50-60 volunteers on the water, plus a bunch more on shore.
As in years past, legions of Fleet 5 members volunteered to support this event.
Marine Regnault-Stoel co-chaired the regatta. Two of the four PROs are card-carrying members of Fleet 5, including
Alex Felton on the Laser line and Kim Pandapas on the Opti Champ line. Other Fleet 5 members, alums and friends who served on RC included
Rob Ferro, Jennifer Jewel, Barbara Hallawell, Judy Adam, Joe Fava and Karen Finocchio. Old friend
Stan Schreyer was front and center as Pleon director, and Wilson Kaznoski and
Molly Lane served as coaches. I’m sure I’ve missed a few, so sorry, but as usual, the R19 community again stepped up in a meaningful way.
Race Week – Race Week, as the only four-day regatta on our schedule, has always delivered drama, intrigue, and the full range of emotions from crushing pain to unbridled jubilation. This year, of course was a little different,
driven primarily by the light conditions, which shortened the regatta and muted the full experience. We lost Thursday and Sunday to washouts, and got in only two races per day of Friday and Saturday. I don’t recall a Race Week, which is typically a test
of endurance and consistency over 10-12 races, that has ever been decided on the basis of just four races.
28 boats registered, which is up from last year, though three didn’t sail, leaving a lineup of 25. A few notables among the field included include
Angela Duplin Hickey, sailing with her brother and husband Dave Hickey, old friend
Ashley Hoguet sailing with her dad Ramsay Hoguet, and Adam Roberts, sailing with
Alden Reid, who you may recall, joined us for RW a few years back.
So let’s get straight to the bottom line. Congratulations to our 2024 Race Week winners
Adam Roberts and Alden Reid, who took home the coveted Spittoon. They put up a line of 1-2-1-4 for 8 total points, beating the 2nd place team by twice that. They sailed a beautifully consistent regatta in conditions that were very
much unaccommodating to consistency. They were simply masterful, and rightly earned a year of Race Week bragging rights. Just as impressive as how they sailed was the way they sailed, which was with passion, energy and enthusiasm. You could hear them laughing
from across the course, and I just love that. Congrats to them. Well done!
Taking 2nd on a tiebreaker was Team Cooke / Kaznoski, who put up a line of 4-8-3-9 for 24 points. They sailed exceptionally well, were sneaky fast and as usual, managed to pick off boats at the corners. Well done.
Finishing 3rd was Larry Ehrhardt with a line of 6-10-5-3, also for 24 points. Larry sails so well and has a knack for always being in the mix, as demonstrate here. Well done.
Honorable mentions go to Team Hooks / Pascal, who took 4th on a 3-way tie breaker with a line of 14-1-6-5 for with 26 points, and
Team Taylor in 5th with a line of 5-9-10-2, also for 26 points. Congratulations to all.
Finally, several Fleet 5 alums made it to the podium this year. In the Town Class,
Nick Cann took 2nd and Bill Heffernan 3rd.
Congrats to Tom Dailey, who took 3rd in the Lasers.
Team Pendleton / Raisides, sailing with Wade Waddell and
Abby Borggaard, took 2nd in the J70 class, which was also their New England Championship. They also were the top Corinthian boat in a fleet of eight Corinthians.
And finally, winning the 2024 Leonard Munn Fowle trophy was former R19 national champ
Jud Smith.
Race Week Recap – Day 1
Thursday was a washout, continuing the disappointing trend that plagued Junior Race Week. That brought the number of consecutive Race Week washouts to four (ignoring the one Opti green fleet race). AP was raised on shore at 10am amidst
fog, glassy water and moored boats aiming in every direction. The forecast suggested the fog would burn off by about 10, and a gentle south westerly in the 5-10 range would build in. None of those things happened over the next couple of hours, so at noon,
PRO Ken Adam pulled the plug.
No second guessing this one. The fog did eventually clear by about 1pm, but the glassy water persisted (see photo below of Chandler Hovey flag at 1pm). So even had Ken held out another hour, there still would have been no reason to drop
AP at l.
To underscore the wisdom of Ken’s decision, here is a look at the weather radar just before 3pm.
Enough said, right? We thank Ken for his wisdom and for salvaging our afternoons.
Race Week Recap – Day 2
The stationary front that had been parked over us all week finally moved on, with high pressure building in behind it in an 8-10 knot northwesterly. This one, however was forecast to fade early and give way to a sea breeze, which is exactly
what happened. We all sailed out to Brimbles on the northwesterly, expecting a race or two in that direction and then another to the SE. The tide was coming in, and the current between those islands was just ripping towards Beverly, stronger on the Children’s
Island side and weaker on the Brimbles side, raising the bar on start timing, strategy, mark roundings, jibe angles, etc.
The RC chose an unlikely spot to set up as it was obstructed to weather by the Brimbles day marker, leaving room for only a 0.4 weather leg, and obstructed to the SE by Children’s Island if the wind turned. Eventually realizing that, they
picked up and moved out, forcing AP for a bit. They got off one start for the J70s before the wind turned, forcing them to reset yet again. The bottom line was that we started our first race sometime after 2pm and got in just two. Tough day to be a PRO,
for sure, but the Brimbles location with ripping current and land masses all around certainly didn’t help. With 30-degree oscillations, this was the shiftiest southeasterly I can remember. It also included significant pressure differentials across the course.
None of this bothered Team Roberts even a little, as they put up an impressive 1-2 for 3 points to win the day handily. Super impressive to be that consistent in those conditions. Taking 2nd was
Team Uhl / Lane, who put up an 8-3 for 11 points, and taking 3rd one point back was
Team Cooke / Kaznoski, with a 4-8 for 12 points. Honorable mentions to
Team Taylor in 4th with a 5-9 for 14 point, and Team Hooks / Pascal
in 5th with a 14-1 for 15 points.
Race Week Recap – Day 3
A welcome amendment came out Friday night changing our line from Brimbles to North, though as a practical matter, we simply moved seaward another 200-250 yards to just beyond Satan’s Rock, which didn’t seem to accomplish much. The forecast
was for sun with variable winds early, becoming ESE 5 to 8 kt in the afternoon and seas around one foot. That’s about what we got – perhaps if measured at the top of the RC mast. It was probably more like 3 to 5 on the water, which made for another maddening
day of light air, ripping current and big shifts. We got in just two races before the wind shut off, the second of which was of the flop-onto-port-immediately-to-fetch variety. The breeze continued to shift resulting in somewhat of a normal beat, but starts
like that arguably don’t do a lot to set up a fair race.
As they did on Friday, Team Roberts shrugged it off, rolling a 1-4 for 5 points to win the day and effectively the regatta by building a 16-point lead. Finishing 2nd was
Larry Ehrhardt with a 5-3 for 8 points, and taking 3rd was Team Fava / Nash with a 2-7 for 9 points. Honorable mentions go to
Team Pandapas in 4th with a 4-6 for 10 points, and Team Taylor in 5th on a tiebreaker with a 10-2 for 12 points, narrowly beating
Team Cooke / Kaznoski with a 9-3, also for 12 points.
So going into the final day, the regatta standings looked like this (6-deep to show the 3-way tie).
Of course, the highlight of the day came during the finish of Race 2, when a wayward and clearly disoriented and exhausted bat landed in
Team Fava / Nash’s boat for a rest. Take a look.
Joe and Elise eventually managed to encourage the bat off the boat with a spinnaker pole, but not before entertaining the entire fleet with the equivalent of standing on a chair when there’s a mouse in your kitchen. Of course, once the
bat was back flying around looking for somewhere else to land, the fleet scattered.
Race Week Recap – Day 4
Race week ended the way it started, with a washout. The forecast of SE 5-10 was a repeat of Saturday, so instead of waiting on shore, we all optimistically sailed out to the North Line. And by sailing, I mean some combination of paddling,
drifting and super light air sailing. Some of us took two hours to get out there, some got a tow, and some didn’t make it all. The RC hoisted AP at noon, with many of us waiting it out drifting around bare polled, and the regatta organizers called it at
1. A fitting end to an unusual race week.
So, a few random thoughts in no particular order. What an unusual Race Week. Five of the seven days (including MJRW) were washouts, leaving just two racing days. There seems to be some building momentum around an initiative to move Race
Week earlier or later in the season. * Team Robert’s performance this week has to be in the top 5 dominant Race Week performances. Though we only raced four races, it’s clear to me that we could have sailed 20 races and gotten the same outcome. * The
four of a possible 12 races we sailed is in my experience, an all-time low. * A bat landing in a race boat during a race in the middle of a summer afternoon has to be a Fleet 5 first. We need to find a way to commemorate it, like a new perpetual trophy or
something. * Congratulations to Thornton Uhl on his engagement, announced on Saturday. * A tip of the cap to
Steve Uhl, who was in 2nd before taking two days of DNCs to prioritize his family.
Here are a few parting shots.
So, in Cup competition, Race Week always results in a lot of reshuffling, and this year is no exception.
Team Uhl / Lane dropped from 1st to 3rd by missing a day of RW, elevating
Team Lane / Heffernan to a precarious six-point lead. The top 10 are listed below.
Week 11 racing will include the 2-3 races of MRA Series 3-1 this Saturday. All fleets will be racing on the South Line.
There will be no Twilight race this Thursday August 1st.
Other News, Notices & Miscellaneous Scuttlebutt
If You Spin, Send It In (aka Road to the Pie) –
Debbie Noble wrote in about an infraction at last week’s MRA race. “Team Noble can be added to the Spin List – hit the start mark and spun on Saturday, Race 2.” We heard of one Race Week spin from
Mark Rubin, who hit a weather mark. Thanks to Team Noble and Team Rubin for their sportsmanship, doing their turns and leaving it on the course.
Remember if you spin, email
kpandapas@comcast.net and let me know how many fouls you committed for which you exonerated yourself.
Ted Hood Regatta – Rhodes 19s have been offered a start at the Ted Hood Regatta, which will be held in Marblehead on Aug 16-18. You can grab the NOR and register
here. It will take a minimum of five boats for us get a start.
Nationals Registration –Nationals will be held this August 22-25 in Hingham Bay, sponsored by Fleet 46 and the Hingham and Hull Yacht Clubs. Register and pick up the NOR
here. Late fee has been extended to August 10th.
Need Mast – Manchester Yacht Club is looking for a Rhodes mast. Contact
Alex Felton at afelton@comcast.net.
Mail Bag
We heard from a three of people about Jeremy Bloxham’s
challenge to name the class of the boat below.
First was from Chris Brady, who incorrectly guessed,
“An Atlantic, popular on western Long Island Sound.” The second was from
Debbie Noble, who wrote, “The mystery boat looks somewhat like a Harbor 20 though I can’t clearly view the “dashboard” – Newport Harbor and area yacht clubs have about 150 privately and club owned Harbor 20s.”
The third was from Jim Taylor, who you might recall we speculated would be highly likely to have the answer.
“Being singled out as a likely ‘ident-i-boat’ candidate reminds me a of a seminal moment in the ‘education of the boat designer as a young man.’ A college age me was chatting in the cockpit after an Annapolis evening race with the boat owner and one of
his friends. The conversation apparently touched on an (ahem!) wide variety of subjects, and after a while the friend blurted out “What is this guy, a f***ing encyclopedia?!” (Contemporaneous note to self: go easy on professing to know something about everything!)
“With that memory as backdrop, I’d venture that the mystery boat looks to be moored in Maine, and I’m guessing that she’s a Boothbay Harbor One Design. Flat-ish fore deck, V-shaped splash boards, low coamings, distinctive transom shape.
But what do I know?”
Apparently, a lot. This from Judge Jeremy. “At the risk of being a pedant, it’s actually a Christmas Cove One Design, seemingly indistinguishable from a Boothbay Harbor One Design other than where it lives. As I am sure Jim
well knows, both derive from the Hodgdon 21.”
So, congrats to the Oracle, Jim Taylor, for nailing this one. And we invite him now to submit his own mystery boat.
Meanwhile, Jeremy sent in another for your consideration, with this note,
“Just in case someone is up to a one design contest this week after what appears from a distance to have been a mind-blowing race week, here it is.”
Joan Thayer wrote in with a rules question. “In Thursday’s situation for calling off the races that were never started on in sequence: Is it AP over A or N over A? The RC called it AP over A. Thanks for pondering this with
me.” There was a lot more to the email, but that’s the essence. We put the question to RW judge
Jon Tagliamonte, who provided this answer.
“To me, it comes down to how many total races the RC intends to run and can the cancelled one be made up. AP over A implies we still plan to run THAT race. For example, if 6 races are planned for a regatta and we give up on race #3
for the day, there will still be races 3,4,5, and 6 attempted to run later. If either the schedule for number of races per day in NOR/SI or the forecast for remaining regatta days means that race #3 will never be held and RC will only try to run races 4,5,
and 6, then November/Alpha abandoning Race 3 would be the correct signal. Postponement vs Abandonment can also have implications under 30.4 Black Flag.”
Finally, we got a couple of comments on last week’s Race Week preview, both alluding to our failure to include one team among the possible podium winners. First from
Debbie Noble, “982 was left off the top contenders for winning Race Week. I don’t think I need to provide the track record in this case, but
Team Pandapas should be on a Top 10 list!”
The other was from my brother Jim Raisides, who wrote,
“Just read the road to cup. One of my favorite editions of the year and loved the adrenaline pump up description of everyone bringing their A game. There was an absence in your preview of a certain RW GOAT team 982. Maybe so the jinx whammy didn’t hit
you.” Okay, guilty as charged.
On a related theme, we got an anonymous email from a bookie in Las Vegas who apparently was building a book on RW, and who also seems to have taken issue with the omission. Shows what Vegas knows. So a $100 bet on
Team Roberts would have returned $700.
Complaints Department
Got Gripes?Don’t be shy. Unload at
kpandapas@comcast.net. The buck stops here.
-kp