November 4-5
Harbor Island Yacht Club
Nashville, TN
The annual pilgramage to Nashville for the autumn classic, The Bluenose, took place this past weekend. George Sipel and I double-decked our Lightnings and headed down for a fun weekend of sailing with our crews. This year, I had my good friends Derek Gauger from Ann Arbor and Jody Swanson from Buffalo. They were great to sail with, but we had as much fun off the water as on.
Jody's trip to Buffalo didn't come off without a hitch. She flew via Detroit and was stuck there on Friday night. We coordinated her pick up early Saturday, with plenty of time to make the start.......assuming she wasn't delayed at Detroit Metro. Well, the ground crew couldn't get the ramp/walkway away from the plane and as it turned out, she just missed the start of the first race.
Derek and I two-manned the Lightning, which isn't quite legal in Lightnings, but as I told most people, we would have taken a 3rd in a heartbeat. We limped our way through that race finishing 8th. Actually we were running 4th until the last beat and lost a few as we found ourselves on the right side.
Jody showed up (thanks to Ernie) for the 2nd race, and we put her to work right away. She took the helm pretty much to give my mind a break. We had an excellent 2nd race (finishing 2nd), but found our score as an OCS. The funny thing is that the RC messed up the flags (we've been here before) and the RC encouraged us to file for reddress. Our consencious decision was not to file because it was a fun regatta. Another team tried, but failed to get reddress.
I took the tiller for the 3rd race on Satruday. We had a great last beat and went from like 8th to 2nd carving our way through the fleet. The Wimpy Flash had great speed on all points of sail, and we were psyched with our overall teamwork and the fun we had. Derek, Jody and I really clicked and it was the most fun I've had in light shifty conditions in a long time.
Saturday night's dinner was a lot of fun. It was great to see all the Lightning friends and talk about the upcoming Southern Circuit (March '01) and Worlds in Italy (July '01). It should be a great year of sailing. Jody and I are going to team back up with Larry MacDonald, so we should have a great time!
Sunday was a lovely day. The wind was 7-15 from the North, which was right down the southern river. I drove the first race and we managed a 4th. We were running 3rd but lost Greg Fisher on the last tack. Kind of a bummer, but we still felt good with our finish. Jody took the last race and we sailed great. We finished 2nd and had another great comeback. Again, great teamwork and a lot of fun.
Sean Fidler won the event with 15 pts. We would have been 2nd with 18, but with our OCS we ended up 7th, which we were happy with. Lenny Krawcheck was 2nd, TA, Jr. 3rd, Greg Fisher 4th, Tobi Heisler & Dan Moriarty 5th, Bill Faude 6th, us 7th, Geo Sipel 8th and Bruin 9th. 45 boats made it a great turnout.
Next is a bunch of Finn Regattas, so stay tuned.