Road To The Cup – Week 17
Top-17 as of 9/15/24
What You Need To Know
- The final day of Fall Series will be this Saturday September 21st.
- MRA Awards will be Friday, October 25th at BYC. Details below.
- Fleet 5 Awards will be Saturday November 2nd at
Chez Pandapas.
Last Week’s Racing
Six teams came out to enjoy some of the best conditions we’ve had all summer, including
Alix (Israel) Houldin, out for the second time in her new boat. Welcome! Also out was Twilight champ
Walter Colsman, helming with Anne Marije Veenland. Nice to see him. The only other fleet out there, by the way, was the Vipers – no Etchells, no IODs and no J70s. September remains one of the best sailing months and inexplicably, very few get
out to enjoy it, but I digress.
The forecast was for north wind 5 to 10, becoming ENE in the afternoon, with seas around one foot. As we’ve seen more often than not the past couple of years, that didn’t quite nail it.
Instead, we got a building easterly that started in the 5-10 range with one foot seas, and finished in the 10-15 range with 4-5 foot rollers. By the end of the day, we were surfing. PRO
Don Miller and his team set up about ¾ mile seaward of the midchannel buoy and gave us three fun W4s. They offered us a fourth race, but half the fleet voted with their feet, so we called it day.
Taking 1st on the day was
Team Pandapas, who rolled a 1-1-2 for 4 points. Finishing 2nd was
Team Lane / Heffernan with a 2-2-1 for 5 points, and taking 3rd was
Team AMV, who put up a line of 3-4-4 for 11 points. Honorable mentions to
Marine Regnault & Stefan Thibodeaux in 4th with a 4-3-5 for 12 points, and
Team Thornton in 5th with a line of 5-5-3, also for 15 points. Congrats to all.
So, in Cup competition, with just one race day left, I’m going out on a limb to congratulate
Team Lane / Heffernan, our 2024 season champs. As I’ve said before, winning the cup requires showing up a lot, consistently good results and maybe a dash of luck. These guys checked all those boxes, winning MRA, taking 2nd on the Twilights,
a respectable 9th in Race Week and stay tuned on the Fall Series where they are just two points out of 1st. They’ve had a great season, and we offer them a congratulatory tip our caps. The top 10 are listed below.
Week 18 racing will be the third and final day of Fall Series on Saturday 9/21. This will be our last race day of the 2024 season.
Other News, Notices & Miscellaneous Scuttlebutt
CYC Takes 2nd Resolute Cup
– Team CYC, including
Wade Waddell, Duncan Swain, Miranda Bakos and Rear Commodore
Doug Sabin, won New York Yacht Club’s prestigious Resolute Cup this past weekend in Newport. They put up an impressive 58 points over 22 races, beating 27 other teams to post their 2nd consecutive victory in this event, which is the first
time any team has won twice. The victory earns CYC a second consecutive birth in the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup next fall (Team CYC finished 2nd in the 2023 Invitational). The Invitational Cup is widely regarded as Corinthian sailing’s
most prestigious international competition. So huge congratulations to them for a super impressive performance. A remarkable achievement – again! Finishing 2nd was NYYC with 74 points and taking 3rd on tiebreaker was Eastern Yacht
Club (who fielded two teams) with 91 points. You’ll find the complete results
here. Two Fleet 5ers participated in this event, including Race Week winners
Adam Roberts sailing for San Diego YC and Alden Reid for EYC.
Missing a Jib? – A R19 jib in pretty good condition was left at the CYC. If you think it might be yours, contact
Jim Taylor at mailto:jim@tayloryachtdesigns.com.
Last Reminder – Nominations for Outstanding Crew –The nomination period is open for just one more week (as we have
some engraving to do). Email your nomination to
kpandapas@comcast.net.
Laser Housing Needed – EYC is hosting the ILCA US Masters Sept 20-22. They expect 100 boats and are looking for housing.
Anyone willing to host a Laser sailor can contact Ledyard Mcfadden at 978-828-0685 or Ledyardmcfadden@gmail.com.
MRA Awards – The 2024 MRA awards will be Friday October 25th at the BYC. The event will start at 6:30 pm and is free
to all MRA members, crew and RC. The format will be similar to last year with light dinner fare (vegetarian/GF options), cash bar, music and a wine pull.
Fleet 5 Awards – Fleet 5 Awards will be Saturday November 2nd at the home of
Christina & Kim Pandapas, starting at 6pm.
If You Spin, Send It In (aka Road to the Pie) – We saw no fouls or spins this week.
Mail Bag
Alex Felton’s one-design challenge generated some mail this week, including from Alex himself, who sent in this hint. “Hint
on mystery one-design. The Worlds have been held in Marblehead.”
Mark Toso
took this guess. “Is the boat a Christmas Cove 21? They race them in the Boothbay Harbor area.”
Old friend Frankie Hart to a stab with this. “I am pretty sure
Alex Felton’s challenge is a tempest.”
But both of those answers, according to Alex, are incorrect. Rather than drag this out another week, here is his answer.
“It’s a Star on Lake Sunapee. With the bow not totally visible it’s hard to identify.”
Complaints Department
Got Gripes?Don’t be shy. Unload at
kpandapas@comcast.net. The buck stops here.
-kp