2007 East Coast Regatta Results
Lake Hopatcong | Finger Lakes & Atlantic Coast Championship Series | Diivision 2 World Qualifying Results | Divison 2 Event #1 |
Lake Hopatcong A- Class Fall Regatta and Atlantic Coast Championship Series.
The 2nd Annual Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club Fall A-Class Regatta was held this weekend September 29-30th.
The weekend started with a full and very long day with 15 out of the 28 sailors coming in Thursday night (Sept 27th) or early Friday morning for a full day of Coaching with Lars Guck. Lars started with some of the very basic concepts of boat handling and added some of the latest most up to date theory and knowledge of A-Class Racing. Starting strategies, Gate rounding strategies, and Sail trim and weight distribution were discussed with a very complete question answer session. After 2 hours of Lars demonstrating on his boat and running thru his version of tacks, string pulling, etc.. a break for lunch with Pizza and Sub-sandwiches was enjoyed. Then it was off the water for a series of drills and races.
Lars had all the sailors do repetitive starts on 3 minute count down and mixed in a short course one lap race every once in a while to keep everyone engaged. While the sailors were doing their drills a Video was recording their progress and showed later back in the club for further analysis. The starting line at first was very deep as sailors had a wide range of experience. As the drills progressed the group at the line as the gun went off, was very tight and very competitive, showing proof that practice does work. During the entire time Lars was barking out suggestions to the sailors and providing some limited one on one coaching when indicated. The clinic ended and boats were put away, only to allow a short period of time before the first party was to start. Peter and Nancy Hefele again hosted the Friday night dinner party at their lake front home with great music, food and plenty of cocktails. All guest sailors were shuttled back late in the evening to their respective host homes via boat.
Saturday we woke up to a beautiful sunny cloudless day with a 10-15 knot breeze out of the NW. The rest of the sailors from out of town arrived and we had some breakfast at the club and started 28 sailors on the line for the first race. The conditions were gusty and provided some very challenging windward beats but some fun and exciting down wind runs.
One of the best parts of Saturday was everyone walking around the club lawn looking at all the new boat designs and shapes. Peter Cogan and Ben Hall had their new hulls there, Steve Clarks design was represented by Bill Vinning from CT. John and Ian Lindahl also made the trip from Michigan with their new LR2 hull shape. Fred Smith from Canada was also there with his brand new LR2. All of this new technology sitting side by side with 30 year old CatNip boats. John Lindahl (Michigan boat builder) and Cal Fuller (father of the CatNip, from Lake Hopatcong) spent many hours discussing boat design. But, nothing was more interesting then seeing Ben Hall set up his new Fixed Wing boat and push it off the ramp into the Lake. We also had a Hydrofoil expert snooping around all day too looking to see what the A-Class is up to now and how he could push that technology into his new Hydro foil Cat boats.
Unfortunately we had several causalities right of the bat with two major collisions occurring and sending three boats back to ramp. The 30 year old CatNip had its starboard bow ripped off at the start, amazing enough the helmsmen was able to sail the boat back to the club by keeping the damaged hull out of the water on the starboard tack, and keeping it from sinking. An XJ was speared and repaired via duct tape for the rest of the races. Lars Guck took 1st place in the 3 races Mike Gruber from LHYC, Ian Lindahl from Michigan, and Danny Goritski from LHYC taking turns at second and third.
Saturday night, “Rums of Puerto Rico” sponsored a Caribbean theme party and dinner at the LHYC. Nearly 75 sailors and guests attended the dinner, live DJ music and dancing until late at night. Sailors were again dragged away to their host homes for some well needed rest. Needless to say all the rum was consumed.
Sunday morning a very slow start to the day was felt by all sailors. A beautiful morning was found with bright sunshine and a light breeze out of the east. Everyone was egor to get another set of races in before calling it a weekend. The breeze shifted immediately to the North East then back again to the east. True to lake form, the wind was making it challenging. Only one race was attempted and a 5 boat photo finish was seen by the spectators at the finish line with local Danny Goritski taking the last race by a foot. Ben Hall pull across at third with Lars Guck third.
After breakdown and reloading the boats on the trailers a barbeque was served up with various meats. The award ceremonies were held afterward out on the lawn. During the announcements, it was noted that within the crowd there was significant representation of the A-Class best sailors. Call Fuller, Ben Hall, “Doc” Stern, John Lindahl, Lars Guck, Mike Gruber were all winners, most multiple times, of the North American Championships. As the awards were given out, Lars Guck with his series of bullets took first place in the fall regatta series, Mike Gruber 2nd, Ian Lindahl with the LR2 hulls got 3rd place, Danny Goritski 4th and Jim Godby 5th.
Since this was the last of the Atlantic Coast Championship series, we also handed out the trophies for this 4 event series. The series is based on the four race weekends held at West River in April, Bristol in June, Cayuga in July and Hopatcong in September. Jim Godby was the only sailor going to all four events, with Mark Skeels, Chris Brown and Andrew Burdett going to three of the four. The First Place trophy was captured by Jim Godby, with Lars Guck getting 2nd, Mark Skeels 3rd, Chris Brown 4th and Tony Arends getting 5th.
Now we are all done and it is time to rest. 3 days of good sailing, socializing, and talking about sailing has worn us all down. Can’t wait to do it again next year, but ready for the Worlds in a month or so.
*Must have attended more then one event and was given a total number of sailors at that event plus one if they did not attend.
** To not give benefit to a sailor who did not attend more then 3 races, the throw out was the lowest non-attended race score. If a sailor attended three or more race events the throw out was the highest score.
Finger Lakes A-Cat Regatta & Atlantic Coast Championship Series
July 21-22, 2007
A good time was had by all. Nine boats were treated to three great days of sailing on Cayuga Lake for the annual Finger Lakes A-Cat regatta, which also served as the third regatta in the four-regatta Atlantic Coast Championship series. Jim Godbey from Bristol won the regatta, followed by local Cayuga Lake sailor Len Dolhert in second, with Mark Skeels from New Jersey third. Friday’s practice day brought 20knots of breeze, with Jim’s GPS recorder showing 21.1 knots of boat speed while bearing off in a large puff. Saturday’s racing was in 15 knots with 1-mile beats in 5 races lasting nearly an hour each. Sunday brought lighter conditions and 2 races, allowing the fleet to have lunch at the Ithaca Yacht Club and get an early start to the drive home. In honor of the 100th Anniversary of Ithaca Yacht Club, engraved wineglass trophies were given to the top five finishers.
2007 Division 2 World Qualifying
Event #1
Hey, we had a pretty fine weekend at the old West River SC this past weekend. This was the first regatta of Division 2's world qualifying events.
It was also a perfect tune up event for the Westfield Annapolis Mall A cat North American Championships . Frank Gibson PRO used the event to get familiar with the A class fleet and train his race committee for the upcoming National event.
A-Cat sailors traveled from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia while the locals enjoyed the familiar territory of their home club.
14 A-Cats registered. Saturday was pretty light and really flukey. we sailed out in the middle of the bay-- a good 5 mile cruise. the first race had a pretty big course and with the flukey breeze it seemed everyone got a chance up front (and way, way back). the race committee (headed up by excellent PRO Frank Gibson) shortened the course and we got another race in.
The A’s got 2 racing in on Saturday. it was pretty challenging towards the end of the last race of the day when the breeze did a real 180 degree shift. Peter Cogan from Connecticut was unstoppable w/ 2 1sts in the A fleet
We rolled back to the club for a few cold ones and some good eats.
Sunday dawned clear w/ some good breeze. Racing started promptly at 11 in 10-20 knots of breeze. Racer X, Mark Bellerman and Jim Godbey shared the firsts in the a-cat fleet.
there were some flips, 2 right at the finish line and one sailor swam across the finish line, w/o his boat! lots of chances to practice getting in and out of the wild thing and a couple of very lucky saves in quasi-pitchpole events!
we had one collision and Sterling Merhing came out on the short end--hope he gets it fixed soon.
apologies to Dave Mack for incomplete Saturday results.
We had a couple of new folks to our fleets and they were looking good--Chris Brown and Mark Schneider in the A’s .
Division: A Cat/ Atlantic Coast Championship/ Spring Regatta (14 boats) (top)
Boats in Red are from division One and will not be scored in Division 2 World qualifing event scores.
| Pos |
Sail |
Boat |
Skipper |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Total
Points |
Pos |
| 1 |
200 |
|
Godbey, James |
[5] |
2 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
7.00 |
1 |
| 2 |
134 |
|
Bellerman, Mark |
2 |
5 |
[6] |
1 |
2 |
10.00 |
2 |
| 3 |
135 |
|
Oliver, Tracy |
3 |
3 |
[7] |
7 |
4 |
17.00 |
3 |
| 4 |
124 |
|
Ford, Chris |
4 |
4 |
[5] |
4 |
5 |
17.00 |
4 |
| 5 |
226 |
|
Arends, Tony |
[15/DNS] |
15/DNS |
1 |
3 |
3 |
22.00 |
5 |
| 6 |
107 |
|
Fornaro, David |
[8] |
7 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
22.00 |
6 |
| 7 |
146 |
|
Schneider, Mark |
[9] |
9 |
3 |
6 |
7 |
25.00 |
7 |
| 8 |
258 |
|
Cogan, Peter |
1 |
1 |
[15/DNS] |
15/DNS |
15/DNS |
32.00 |
8 |
| 9 |
233 |
|
Mack |
10 |
[13] |
9 |
8 |
8 |
35.00 |
9 |
| 10 |
191 |
|
Faber, Mike |
7 |
8 |
8 |
[15/DNS] |
15/DNS |
38.00 |
10 |
| 11 |
108 |
|
Orr, Bob |
[12] |
10 |
10 |
9 |
9 |
38.00 |
11 |
| 12 |
193 |
|
Brown, Chris |
6 |
6 |
[15/DNS] |
15/DNS |
15/DNS |
42.00 |
12 |
| 13 |
159 |
|
Durritt, Ken |
11 |
11 |
[15/DNS] |
15/DNS |
15/DNS |
52.00 |
13 |
| 14 |
179 |
|
Mehrling, Sterling |
13 |
12 |
[15/DNS] |
15/DNS |
15/DNS |
55.00 |
14 |
