And then of course there was the racing, a mixture of triangle- and windward-leeward courses:

Race 1: To the best of my recollection, winds were light, about 3-5 knots, and we sailed a traingle-sausage course with a windward leg up Lake Townsend away from the club end of the lake. Sue and I fought for and got a start near the (briefly) favoured pin end. I think Bart and Janet spent much of the weekend on the far right side of the beat but I decided the wind seemed directionally like the Saturday of the Mayor's Cup and of HOT IV where people gained by sailing over towards the golf course side. That and the fact that the leading Wayfarers were headed towards the 9th tee, made me stay on the left side of the beat.



We Wayfarers were closely bunched at the windward mark with Bart already beginning to pull away to what would be an edge of more than two minutes by the finish.

I think it was on the second beat that Jim and Linda caught one of the shifts just right, and with their light weight and fine teamwork, pulled away to take 2nd place behind Bart, about half a minute ahead of a tightly bunched group of four Wayfarers (above) and Robert Bouknight with Nancy Torkewitz in his Flying Scot. Al and Sue took 3rd, four seconds ahead of Uwe Heine with Nancy Collins who in turn were only two seconds up on Richard Johnson and Michele Parish. 12 seconds later, it was Annmarie Covington with Scott Brown in her snazzy new green Mark IV, with Robert following 16 seconds thereafter. A well balanced fleet as all 20 entries finished within about 12 minutes. On corrected time, Bart and Janet held 1st ahead of the Wayfarers though his corrected time edge was only half a minute or so.


Race 2: Winds slightly stronger than race 1, perhaps 5 to 8 knots, enough for the PRO to switch the US Portsmouth numbers to level 2-3 from level 0-1 which chaged handicaps as follows: Buccaneer 89.2 from 87, Wayfarer 91.7 from 94, Flying Scot 90.4 from 92.1. I do believe this was the race that Sue and I got the perfect pin end start and went on to sail the triangle-sausage race in pretty acceptable form, if you discount the fact that Bart and Janet went right up the beats and soon left us well behind. I seem to recall their Buc planing at times. The Strebs ended up beating us across the line by two and a half minutes, which edge the handicap reduced to a half-minute. By the finish, it was a three-horse race for 2nd with Sue and I holding off the faster Scot (Robert Bouknight and Nancy Torkewitz) by 9 seconds while latter barely edged AnnMrie by one second for 3rd place. A close race for 5th came down to Jim beating Richard by only 4 seconds. On corrected time, Wayfarers took 2nd through 5th, while it is also worth noting that our two newest lovebirds, Alan Taylor and Stephanie DeLair in their snail-rated Harpoon 4.6 moved up 9 places to 7th on corrected time.






Race 3: "That Bart," I said to myself, "he can't be sailing that much better than all the rest of us! He must be getting something over there that we are not." So we took the unfavoured RC Boat-end start and it went downhill from there. Winds were back down to 3 to 5 knots and the USPN 0-1 handicaps for another triangle-sausage(?) course as we found no joy on the right side.  One of those races where we very rarely found ourselves tacking into a shift that held.


Meantime, I think Bart went right and romped to another decisive win while Sue and I had a fine view of most of the fleet off our bow for much of the race - great crew work wasted by poor decision-making.


This time though, Bart's one-and-a-half minute edge on straight time over Jim and Linda Heffernan was not quite enough as the Heffernans edged the Strebs by two seconds on corrected time. It was in fact. a very close finish among the top Wayfarers where Jim and Linda crossed the finish line only three seconds ahead of LTYC clubmates, Uwe Heine and his wife, Nancy Collins (whom Bart and Janet beat by one second on corrected time!). Seven seconds further back were Richard and Michele who now sail out of New Bern. With fine crew work from Sue Cole, Uncle Al clawed his way back up to 5th, just seconds ahead of AnnMarie. Only four seconds separated Craig Wacaser and Dave Batchelor (7th) in their Flying Scot from John Fragakis in the lone Laser.


After placing 12-11 in races 1 and 2, new Wayfarers, Evan and Mary Trudeau (above), moved their Wayfarer Mark IV, freshly acquired from Ted Tewkesbury, into the top ten (9th). Speaking of which, Robert Bouknight's unwillingness to protest cost him a spot in the top ten in this race after a windward boat forced Robert into a boat to leeward of him. Robert could/should have passed the foul on to the boat to windward but failed to protest and ended up having to drop out. Other boats providing entertainment for the RC were Ken Butler and Jeannie Allamby (W449) who edged out Matt Stalnaker and Andy Foreman in their Tanzer 16 by a mere couple of seconds.

Race 4: Sunday morning brought more of the same glorious weather and light winds - USPN 0-1. Good luck for Sue and me at the start where we fought for the pin end start which had become favoured as our countdown progressed. The two boats in front of us (Jim H and a Scot?) ended up early to the pin and had to re-start, leaving us a clear path to the 9th green. We held starboard til we were nearly aground but into the better breeze funneling along the shore. One of the few times it may be justifiable to sail nearly to the layline early in the leg. At the windward mark, we held a bit of a lead, perhaps 100 yards, and I noted happily that my pals, Bart and Janet, were well and truly buried. With fine crew work from Sue, we held our lead, being especially happy that Jim, AnnMarie and Richard - all relative light-weights compared to the man of substance who helms 3854 and thus potentially faster downwind - were closely bunched starting the final run to the finish, and would likely be concentrating more on beating each other than naything else. In the end, we cruised across the line half a minute ahead of Jim who edged out AnnMarie and Richard. Next across were Bart and Janet and then came Robert and Nancy in Scot 775, the unfortunate retiree from race 3 the day before. Young Elizabeth Plageman with Tom and Aubrey Bews scored a fine 7th ahead of five Wayfarers: Uwe Heine with Nancy Collins took 8th, Evan Trudeau with Mary came 9th, and Ali Kishbaugh with Mike Sigmund in the borrowed club Wayfarer completed the top 10. Congratulations to Regatta Chair, Trish McDermott did a fine job in her debut as a racing helm in W1392 St. Elmo's Fire, placing 11th (ahead of Ken Butler W449 with Jeannie Allamby) with Tony Krauss as her crew and mentor.

Race 5: Unbeknownst to any of us, Jim and Linda Heffernan held a one-point lead over Bart and Janet Streb as we began the 5th and final race, while Al Schonborn and Sue Cole were a mere two points out of first. In that finale, Bart and Janet rose to the occasion with a runaway win by over three minutes to move into a series tie with Jim and Linda who took 2nd in the finale. On the strength of three convincing firsts, Bart and Janet won the tie-breaker
and are your 2016 HOT champions.

A close fight for 3rd place in race 5 saw Richard, Al and Uwe place 3-4-5 withing seven seconds of each other. Thosse scores left Al Schonborn and Sue Cole in series 3rd while Richard Johnson and wife, Michele, snapped with a vengeance, a series-4th tie they had been in with AnnMarie Covington and Scott Brown who fell to an 8th in the finale and 5th overall. Uwe Heine and wife, Nancy, ended up 6th overall after their final-race 5th. Next across in 6th was Robert Bouknight with Nancy Torkewitz in Scot 775, a finish which left him 8th overall.



It was a lovely ending for Al Kishbaugh and Mike Sigmund who scored an excellent 7th in race 5 (9th overall), ahead of two other lady helms, AnnMarie Covington and Elizabeth Plageman. The latter finished strongly with a pair of corrected-time 9ths and missed the top ten overall by only one point.
Crossing the line in 10th (corrected to 9th) - by far the best result of their series - were Ken Butler and Jeannie Allamby who ended up 15th overall and were no doubt pleased that they had been able to defeat one of the flashy new Mark IVs, W10945, helmed by Evan Trudeau to 11th on elapsed time. Their last-race 11th was enough, however, to give Evan and wife, Mary, a top-ten finish overall. Very well done in your first Wayfarer regatta, Even and Mary!! I trust we'll see you at many more.
Wayfarer newcomer, Steve Freyaldenhoven brought his composite Wayfarer, W3446, in from Smith Mountain Lake, turning the helm over to a slightly more experienced racer, Mitch Krasowski. In the finale, after trailing the rest of the Wayfarers by a fair distance in races 1 through 4, Mitch and Steve (17th overall) got right into the thick of the Wayfarers with Ken, Evan and Trish, and came to within an eyelash of escaping the Wayfarer basement, ending up just one second behind Trish and Tony (series 13th).
Finishing in 14th but corrected to 12th were Matt Stalnaker and Andy Foreman, and 12th is also where they ended the series. Placing 15th in the finale was Flying Scot 2048 sailed by the team of JC Aller, Steve Raper and Josh (left?) who ended their series in 18th.
A last-race 16th for Alan and Stephanie in their Harpoon became a corrected- time 10th and left them in a very respectable 7th overall. Sailing the other Buccaneer were Otto Afanador and his wife, Maritsa, who are just starting their racing learning curve. Keith Smoot retired from the finale and thus placed series 20th. Three boats missed Sunday's races altogether: Laser, John Fragakis, fell to series 14th despite a fine trio of single-digit finishes on the Saturday; Scot sailors, Craig Wacaser and Dave Batchelor, ended up 16th while Gary Gooden and Mark Wise in their Holder 14 finished 19th.

Heartfelt thanks to our many volunteers who were kindly listed by Trish McDermott and whose report I am quite happy to borrow:


Wow! Thank you all for a wonderful HOT V Charity Regatta! We couldn't have asked for better weather during this exciting event. Temperatures in the low 80s on Saturday gave way to a slightly cooler Sunday. The winds on Saturday were perfect for three exciting races. The next day, winds were a bit lighter but were still enough to be fun.

There were 10 Wayfarers, four Flying Scots, two Buccaneers, a Boston Whaler Harpoon, a Laser, a Holder 14, a Hobie TI and two of the club's Tanzers. The overall winners were Bart and Janet Streb in their Buccaneer Adrenalin.  Second place went to Jim and Linda Heffernan in their Wayfarer Dawn Treader, and third went to Al Schonborn and Sue Cole in Uncle Al's Wayfarer Shades, aka Glory Days.

Thanks to Jerry Thompson for another outstanding job as PRO for his fifth year in a row! Thanks also to Phil Leonard for organizing the Race Committee (Peter McCumber, Michael Crouch, Wesley Ivins, Jack Davidson, Kim Wise, Mary Krauss, Phil Andrews, Phil Leonard, and Chris Ford) and to Cathy Leonard for all of her help and artistic contributions. Ali Kishbaugh, you are greatly appreciated for your organizational skills and assistance. Thanks also to the Grimsley High School Sailing Club for their help. Photos are courtesy of Linda Marsh and her photo boat driver, Scott Bogue, plus of course, your Uncle Al (W3854).

A big Thank You to Jack Davidson for donating his Mistral 16 to be raffled. This was new territory for the HOT and it turned out very well in many ways. Lots of tickets were sold but we were still short of the goal. Everyone was anxious to have the raffle drawn on Saturday and with the help of Nancy Torkewitz, who quietly bought the remaining raffle tickets in Elizabeth Plageman's name, we made it! Nancy really wanted to see Elizabeth win and her generosity is amazing! A heartfelt thanks to all, and especially Nancy, for making the raffle a wonderful and happy event. (Elizabeth and her family took Elizabeth's new boat out on the lake for the first time on the Saturday following the regatta.)
 
Please support the businesses who generously supported HOT V. They are: EW Process (Phil Leonard's employer), Adventure Lion (Dry Bags), Costco, Havana Phil's Cigar Company (go see his place!), The Fresh Market, All Pets Considered, Balance Day Spa, Oreck, The Biltmore Estate, Annapolis Performance Sailing, Big Burger Spot (great burgers!), Chick-fil-A, Jared, Little Caesar's Pizza, Jet's Pizza, Mind/Body/Fitness Yoga, Planet Fitness, Artisan Art and Framing (beautiful photo of Figure 8 Island), Matt Stalnaker (guitar lessons which garnered lots of bids!), Carol Moates (two beautiful watercolor paintings), Becky Clodfelter (a wonderful water color painting, framed), InfoLink (John Kuzmier, who insisted his donation must buy "good" beer!), Triad Paw Prints (T-shirts), US Sailing, Total Wine, R. H. Barringer (beer), Natty Greene's, Texas Road House (peanuts, salad and bread), Stamey's BBQ, Golden Corral (baked spaghetti), Lowe's Foods (great fried chicken), Panera, Biscuitville, John Hemphill (three nights at his mountain chalet), Mediterraneo Restaurant, Porter House Restaurant, Country Kitchen Restaurant, Sonnys BBQ, and last but not least, Little River Crafts (Eric Rasmussen). I hope no one was overlooked. These companies and several of our members gave so generously and everyone is much appreciated.

The final amount we raised for Earlier.org is not available yet, but as of this writing we are short of our goal. Please help us get closer to our goal of $10,000 by making a contribution to HOT V at earlier.org. We also have some awesome HOT V t-shirts available for $20.

Trish McDermott