A night for the memory books
Fathers have special moments with their kids. This night was one of them for me. After Jon called to tell me he couldn’t make it and after a futile search for a crew, Chris my seven year old son asked if you could crew. I was not sure he would have the energy after sailing all day in his sailing school. But before I knew it he was pulling his brothers gear out of my jeep and getting dressed. There he was with pants, splash top, sailing boots, my gloves, life jacket and a trapeze harness on walking eagerly and proudly across the parking lot ready to go. “Let’s go dad!”
Chris drove the boat out to the starting area which included the German tall ship. This was going to be his first race – ever. We had a nice start in the first race to leeward of Mark and Josh in the Screaming Pelican. I was able to pinch them off and they were forced to tack the wrong way in a nasty, nasty current. We were able to round the windward mark first. Chris drove as I put up the pole and hoisted the spinnaker. He did a great job of keeping a straight line. We held our lead and won the race. He gave me a huge high-five after crossing the line and reminded me that we needed to thank the race committee. I guess he learned something helping with race committee a few weeks earlier.
The second race saw the Screaming Pelican return to form and walking away with a solid victory.
Race three we jumped out quickly to a huge lead after it looked like everyone was taking penalty turns. There was an incident just prior to the start which I seem to recall resulted in the turns. Anyway we were looking good when I notice guest skipper Kevin Farrar and Oakley Jones in the Wharf Rat tacking again. I was thinking where the hell are they going they are going to overshoot the mark. Well, they were the smart ones as I got swept by that nasty current into the windward mark. After my penalty turns the Wharf Rat had passed us and proceeded to win, but we managed to hold second.
The final race of the night saw Ross once again sailing away to victory. I’m getting the feeling he likes to finish off of Ida Lewis Yacht Club.
Four races and four race winners – it doesn’t get much better than that. This fleet is super competitive to say the least. Every night this season has seen the top of the fleet separated by only two points and tonight was another example of that.
The final results for the evening were:
Sugar Magnolia 1-2-2-4 = 9
Wharf Rat 3-3-1-2 = 9
Oobleck 2-4-4-1 = 11
Screaming Pelican 4-1-3-3=11
741 5-5-5-5=20
US Blues (don’t ask – don’t tell)
Something about the skipper was late so the crew took a nap in the boat that was already in the water and tied to the dock, but the skipper didn’t find the crew…….
In celebration of a great night of racing the Naval War College put on a nice fireworks display over Newport Harbor.
I was so proud of Chris – he did such a great job for a kid his age. Now I need to teach him how to open a beer for his skipper with his sailing gloves on…….
Chris drove the boat out to the starting area which included the German tall ship. This was going to be his first race – ever. We had a nice start in the first race to leeward of Mark and Josh in the Screaming Pelican. I was able to pinch them off and they were forced to tack the wrong way in a nasty, nasty current. We were able to round the windward mark first. Chris drove as I put up the pole and hoisted the spinnaker. He did a great job of keeping a straight line. We held our lead and won the race. He gave me a huge high-five after crossing the line and reminded me that we needed to thank the race committee. I guess he learned something helping with race committee a few weeks earlier.
The second race saw the Screaming Pelican return to form and walking away with a solid victory.
Race three we jumped out quickly to a huge lead after it looked like everyone was taking penalty turns. There was an incident just prior to the start which I seem to recall resulted in the turns. Anyway we were looking good when I notice guest skipper Kevin Farrar and Oakley Jones in the Wharf Rat tacking again. I was thinking where the hell are they going they are going to overshoot the mark. Well, they were the smart ones as I got swept by that nasty current into the windward mark. After my penalty turns the Wharf Rat had passed us and proceeded to win, but we managed to hold second.
The final race of the night saw Ross once again sailing away to victory. I’m getting the feeling he likes to finish off of Ida Lewis Yacht Club.
Four races and four race winners – it doesn’t get much better than that. This fleet is super competitive to say the least. Every night this season has seen the top of the fleet separated by only two points and tonight was another example of that.
The final results for the evening were:
Sugar Magnolia 1-2-2-4 = 9
Wharf Rat 3-3-1-2 = 9
Oobleck 2-4-4-1 = 11
Screaming Pelican 4-1-3-3=11
741 5-5-5-5=20
US Blues (don’t ask – don’t tell)
Something about the skipper was late so the crew took a nap in the boat that was already in the water and tied to the dock, but the skipper didn’t find the crew…….
In celebration of a great night of racing the Naval War College put on a nice fireworks display over Newport Harbor.
I was so proud of Chris – he did such a great job for a kid his age. Now I need to teach him how to open a beer for his skipper with his sailing gloves on…….
posted by Oakley at 7:49 AM
2 Comments:
This was a great night. My skipper Kevin was dropping off a sail at NEB and when he called me to ask about doing RC duty I asked if he wanted to sail. Now Kevin has 1.25 110s (one is a glass boat and one is a pile of plywood ready to be turned into a boat) and he was pumped to sail. He told me that it was probably 30 years since he'd raced a 110. We had good speed off the line and it was a challenge in the strong current to get to the top mark. Plus a J22 came over to our race course to see what we were doing and in the process snagged the weather mark. The old couple on the 22 just sat there with sad looks on their faces while the fleet rounded them and headed downwind. Tom Welsh had Dmetri Sitty as his crew/skipper with him that night. he has been racing for a long time in many venues from 110's, 505's Vanguard 15's, Atlantics and Most recently Force 5's. We hope to see him back out soon.
Now about Alex's crew falling asleep in the cockpit...sounds fishy to me!
Oakley
I will fess up to the starting like incident. With the current ripping like it was you basically had to kiss the comittee boat in order to cross the line. We were on port, trying like crazy to get to the boat. I tried to fit the twenty-four foot long boat into a two foot space between Oakley's stern and Ross' bow, both of whom were on starboard. Ross was forced to tack away to avoid an absolutely imminent collision. (thanks Ross)
As the driver of the boat one would expect some kind of reassuring, confidence building, heroic statement in times of possible disaster. All I managed to come up with was "Oh, this is going to be bad." I would love to get a picture of Josh's expression when I let that one out.
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