Peter and Alex Rahn sweep U.S. Nationals in cold, windy Cottonwood

Weeks of 80-degree warmth and sunshine in Charlotte, North Carolina unfortunately came to an untimely end just as this year's Cottonwood Regatta arrived on the weekend of April 23-24. Instead of the anticipated glorious spring weather, fleets of nine Wayfarers and seven Lightnings got strong, cold gusty winds and temperatures barely into the 50's F, conditions that convinced nearly half of the W fleet to stay ashore and enjoy the lovely, warm on-shore hospitality of the Catawba YC instead.

In winds that gusted well over 20 knots at times, Montreal's Peter Rahn and his son, Alex, sailed superbly. Decisively winning all four of the races that the Wayfarers were willing to sail, the Rahns won the open US Wayfarer title for the third time, adding to their back-to-back wins in 1999 and 2000. Congratulations, Peter and Alex!

It was a gutsy performance with no "senior moments" for runners-up, John de Boer and his wife, Dolores, of London, Ontario. While most of John's contemporaries would be content just to sit in one of those lovely Catawba YC porch rocking chairs to watch the action or have a nap, John (and Dolores!) put together a very well sailed string of second-place finishes in extremely challenging conditions, and beat their 4th seed by an impressive two places.

Tops among 6 US entries and winning the lovely Designer's Trophy were our marvellous hosts, Richard Johnson and his wife, Michele Parish. In sailing to 3-4-3-3 finishes, Richard and Michele had some impressive spinnaker rides. And they challenged the de Boers throughout the series despite having to work twice as hard as the rest of us in making sure we were all well fed and beered. Team Chick'n earned further honours as they beat their seed by four positions and were our Most Improved team once more, as they had been at the Midwinters.

The freshly minted Mississauga-based team of Hans Gottschling and John Weakley sailed well but fell victim to gusts - capsizing in race 1 and 3 on Saturday. They self-rescued and finished in race 1, but in race 3, an exhausted Hans had to be taken to a nice, hot shower after a second turtle. Meanwhile, the intrepid John Weakley stayed with the ship. After a tow to a near-by beach, John bailed and kept undamaged The Nutshell and was then - standing tall at the tiller, and applauded by the many kibitzers on shore - towed back to the club by the safety boat.

With the kind permission of the regatta organizers, the Canadian Wayfarer Association used the Cottonwood Regatta - one of John Weakley's favourites - to present John with a CWA Honorary Life Membership in appreciation for the many super Race Committee jobs he has done for Wayfarers, including two superbly run Wayfarer Worlds, in 1995 and 2004. Sincere thanks from all of us to John who joins a select group of half a dozen or so Wayfarers which includes George Blanchard, Don Davis and Mike McNamara.

Series 5th went to Virginia's Tony Krauss with Georgia's Bill Waller. The latter was eager to sail in some serious winds, and when his helm, Mo Metcalf, decided he'd just as soon take pictures from shore, Bill volunteered to crew on Tony's boat where regular crew, Mary Abel, was happy to opt for hopefully warmer and drier duties aboard the rescue boat. After a solid 4th in race 1, Tony and Bill capsized in race 2. That was enough fresh Wayfarer experience for Tony and Bill, and they packed it in for the rest of the series.

The remaining four helms, Mo Metcalf, Joe DeBrincat, Bob Frick and Mike Murto - all in their sixties, seventies and eighties - wisely decided that the shore looked quite appealing and stayed there for the whole series: Saturday was cloudy, cool and very windy, gusting to near 25 knots. Sunday brought bright sunshine and slightly less intimidating winds but temperatures that were struggling to reach the 40's F as the fleets headed out for a 9 a.m. first gun.

There was actually a 10th Wayfarer present. Al Schönborn - not certain that the new Wayfarer mast which he needed after breaking the old one at the Midwinters would arrive in time for the Cottonwood - had asked to borrow a Lightning for this year's Cottonwood, expecting to sail it with Marc Bennett and Richard Johnson's daughter, Alyssa, who had earned her White Sail Level One at the Port Credit YC Junior Club during last year's Worlds. Then came the good news and bad news: Marc was unable to get away from work at the last minute but the good news was that the former W611, Jim Heffernan, an ace W racer and now living in North Carolina, had called Richard, eager to find a crewing job. The very kind and enthusiastic Ron Wright had found Al, Alyssa and Jim a lovely, well rigged Lightning with fine sails. So, everything was all set. Except the weather! In these winds, the three of us - having never sailed together - raced largely to survive and to avoid damaging Len Little's fine boat. In three Saturday races, we outsurvived three capsizers in our 7-boat fleet and placed 4th, our best finish of the series. In race 2, we tacked to port shortly after a decent start, only to discover that our mast was bending like a Finn mast because our shroud had come off its spreader. Fortunately, we were able to immediately tack back to starboard and dawdle back to the club on one tack without damaging the mast. The plug connecting the shroud to the spreader turned out to have broken and our racing was done for the day. This disappointed Jim quite a bit but Uncle Al, one whose bicuspids had its nerve dying, was just as happy to call it a day.

We were able to sail the Lightnings' two Sunday races though, after Ron Wright and his crew, John Homes, who had already repaired one Lightning on Saturday night, got up horribly early on Sunday to fix our boat with help from Jim who was camping at the club. We did manage to fly the spinnaker in the first of these Sunday races and even gybed it - unintentionally - in a major wind shift. On the second run, we managed to rip the foot of the spi by wedging it into a tiny gap between rubrail and bow. Thus, the fact that we actually lucked in and reached the windward mark first in the finale, did not end up counting for much. As we sailed, spinnakerless, down the run, we tried not to screw up those who were doing it "right". We did end up avoiding series last by one point. (For Lightning results, click here) Our thanks to the whole Lightning Fleet who were most welcoming, friendly and helpful, and especially to Ron Wright and John Holmes who worked very hard to give us everything we needed to be able to compete on a level playing field. Perhaps next year, I'll put the opportunity to better use! And perhaps next year's trip home will be an improvement over this year's snow I drove home through on Sunday and Monday and which lasted from North Carolina through to Erie, PA!!

Still on the topic of Ron Wright and thanks, no regatta report would be complete without  appreciative recognition of our Cottonwood co-organizers: Ron Wright (Lightnings) and the Johnsons: Richard and Michele (Wayfarers). Thanks, Ron, Michele and Richard for great food, drink, entertainment, hospitality and perhaps most essential of all, for getting the Race Committee headed by Joleen and Eric Rasmussen to come back and do another outstanding job like they had done in 2004.

Hope to see more sailors enjoying the Cottonwood in 2006 - we're bound to get better weather!