2019 HOT Regatta
HOT report by Uncle Al  W3854


Hot Wayfarer Fleet Shines in 2019 HOT Regatta 

The HOT Regatta was held by the Lake Townsend YC in Greensboro, North Carolina October 25-27, 2019, in support of earlier.org, a charity dedicated to funding research into the earlier detection of breast cancer. Money raised by this year’s fleet of 23 boats let us reach the goal towards which we have been working since 2012: the funding of one $40,000 research grant towards a project to be selected by earlier.org. The future of the HOT Regatta is unclear at this time since our commitment to earlier has been lived up to. The likeliest development appears to be that LTYC continues on with a less labour-intensive regatta that would leave Carolina Week intact: weekend 1 (HOT at LTYC) > rally sailing on the NC coast > weekend 2 (OBD at Charlotte’s Catawba YC).

 
Eric Rasmussen photo (l to r) Monica Pla, Uwe Heine, Paul Miller,
Phil Leonard, Jim Cook, Jim Heffernan, Peggy Menzies

Weather was ideal throughout the weekend with warm winds that were rarely enough to be scary and just enough clouds to allow interesting photography. The only "cloud" on the forecast’s horizon was a rainy, squally front predicted for Sunday that ultimately had the decency to pass through late Saturday night.

PRO, Jerry Thompson, once more gave us great racing, this time in four separate fleets : three Club 420’s capably sailed by the high school sailing team, five Flying Scots, eleven very competitive Wayfarers plus a four-boat Open Fleet, featuring two Buccaneers, a Holder 14 and an Isotope catamaran.

For many, the HOT weekend began with a 4PM Friday racing tactics and strategy session led by Uncle Al. This had been scheduled for the weekend of the Mayor’s Cup in June but ended up having to be postponed to the HOT weekend. And it nearly was postponed yet again when Uncle Al’s beloved Pamco trailer, bought rusty and used in 1975, blew a spring on an expressway about an hour away from Lake Townsend. After less than fifty years of use. Tsk! Urged to get a move on by the wakes of passing semis, I abandoned boat and disabled trailer and proceeded to Lake Townsend. At this writing (Tues 29 Oct), boat and trailer remain in the - I hope - tender care of Bryant's Trailer Repair who are searching for a replacement axle. My heartfelt gratitude to Scott Bogue for his help in this matter and to the several people who offered me the use of their trailer to retrieve SHADES in time to race.



The coaching session went very well as we only loosely followed the It's All in Your Mind section of KISS Your Dinghy (above) being projected onto a screen to accompaniment of tons of fine pizza. Instead we discussed a series interesting racing question raised by folks in attendance. Later, the now traditional sing-along at Trish and Scott's lovely home filled in a fine evening with Scott and Trish each playing their ukelele and JC Aller on Scott's guitar. All in all, a lovely lead-in to the HOT 8 Regatta.

Saturday brought largely sunny, warm conditions with winds mostly around 8 knots, lower in the occasional soft patches and gusting to near 15 knots at times. In other words, flawless sailing weather. After a nice breakfast at the shelter, the briefing was indeed "brief", with Jerry announcing that, in light of the miserable weather forecast for Sunday, the RC would try to get four of the five scheduled races of a no-drop series  into the books that day. After a punctual 12 noon start, the Race Committee efficiently ran us through four races by about 4 PM: three windward-leewards of various lengths (two or three sausages) and even a challenging triangle-sausage configuration with very tight spinnaker reaches.

In Wayfarers, four teams ended the day's racing only four points apart at the top of the heap. Those wily old veterans from the host club, Jim Heffernan and wife, Linda, had 11 points from 1-5-2-3 finishes which left them one up on Michigan's Peggy Menzies, sailing with her sister, Kathy, from Minnesota who had scored 5-4-1-2, and two up on our Connecticut team of Paul Miller and wife, Dawn. Also still in with a realistic chance were AnnMarie Covington and Caroline Sherman at 15 points from 3-2-6-4.


Jim and Linda   Eric Rasmussen photo

 
Peggy and Kathy   Eric Rasmussen photo

 
Paul and Dawn   Eric Rasmussen photo

 
AnnMarie and Caroline   Eric Rasmussen photo

A perfect soft evening with free drinks and fine food as well as friendly socializing rounded out our Saturday, which ended on the happy news that the nasty front that had been expected Sunday morning, had speeded up and would pass through during the night. Fine sleeping weather!!! And it was!



The Sunday finale started at 1030 hrs (above) and gave us a WD2 course: three sausages with long legs up and down the lake. Hitting the golf course on the first beat up the lake plus great speed, pointing and crew work paid off handsomely for Peggy and Kathy as they were the runaway leaders through the first four legs and looked to have the series win in the bag. But on the final beat, Uwe and Nancy who had heard a forecast predicting a major veer (clockwise wind shift) was likely, banged the right corner and was the first get not only the veer but more pressure. They were soon romping along with a good lead.


Uwe and Nancy   Eric Rasmussen photo

Meanwhile Peggy and Kathy fell to 2nd place. Nonetheless, by staying between the opponents they absolutely had to beat - most notably Jim/Linda and Paul/Dawn - and the next mark, i.e. they played it exactly by the book.  Meanwhile Jim and Linda also got to the favoured right side in time to rise from the race-dead into contention. They then survived the minefield of dead spots on the final run to rescue an amazing 3rd.

That left Jim and Linda tied with Peggy and Kathy for series first at 14 points, but in the ensuing tie-breaker, Peggy and Kathy got the nod in the most 1sts, most 2nds, etc. stage with two 2nds to the Heffernans' one. By taking series 2nd, the 5th-seeded Heffernans also earned Most Improved honours for the Hot Regatta. With a 4th in the finale, 2nd-seeded Paul and Dawn Miller in from Connecticut locked up series 3rd.

There was a points tie at 24 points between a pair of Lake Townsend team as Uwe and Nancy's spectacular come-back win not only moved them into a points tie with AnnMarie Covington and Caroline Sherman but gave them the nods in the tie-breaker as well (most 1sts). 5th overall was nonetheless a fine achievement for the 7th-seeded Covington/Sherman team.

 
Uncle Al and Jim   Eric Rasmussen photo

Only a pair of points further back were the international team of Jim Cook (Charlotte, NC) and Uncle Al (Oakville, ON) who were followed series 7th by our furthest travelled team, Iain Tulloch and hsi wife, Lesley, from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Iain and Lesley also impressed as they improved on their 9th seed by two places.


Iain and Lesley   Eric Rasmussen photo

 
Nancy and Phil   Eric Rasmussen photo

After a fine first-race 4th, things went downhill for Lake Townsend’s Phil Leonard and his wife, Cathy, who ended up matching their seed with an 8th-place finish, ahead of clubmates Ken Butler with Gail Walters and Pete Thorn with Dawn-Michelle Oliver.

 
Ken and Gail   Eric Rasmussen photo

 
Pete and Dawn-Michelle   Eric Rasmussen photo

 

Special thanks to our stellar Regatta Chair, Trish McDermott who, along with JC  Aller and Julie Feldkamp assisted our inimitable PRO, Jerry Thompson, who kept alive his streak of having run the racing for every HOT regatta. Manning the Safety and Photography boats were Mark Wilson, Hudson Barker, John Hemphill, Jeannie Allamby, photographer Eric Rasmussen, Scott Bogue as well as high school coaches, George Bageant and Mark Hayes. And let us not forget our super server in the food department, Wanda Williams (below).





Clean Sweep for Logan Hayes in 420 Fleet

The 420 fleet consisted of three boats sailed local high school sailors, who all looked good. They bode well for the future of our sport.

 

 

 




Logan and Emma   Eric Rasmussen photo

On this weekend, there was no beating Logan Hayes who teamed up for four Saturday "bullets" with Emma McArthur and one more on the Sunday with Emma's brother, Jack.

 


Will and Jackie   Eric Rasmussen photo

Series runners-up were Will Niven and crew, Jackie Denenny (above), who beat out Monica Pla, a Spanish exchange student who was teamed with Nino Criscuolo (below).

 

 

 
Monica   Eric Rasmussen photo


Monica and Nino   Eric Rasmussen photo


 
Eric Rasmussen photo

Close Battle for HOT Flying Scot Title

In the Flying Scot division, three of the five HOT 2019 teams finished within one point. Robert Bouknight and Nancy Torkewicz, even though they placed 3rd in the 5th and final race,  hung on to take "Gold" with 10 points from 2-2-2-1-3 finishes.




Nancy and Robert   Eric Rasmussen photo

 
Steve and Anderson   Eric Rasmussen photo

Despite scoring three wins in the five races, Steve Jones and his son, Anderson, ended in a tie for series 2nd at 11 points from 4-1-1-4-1 finishes. The Jones' three bullets did give them the tie-breaker (most firsts, etc) with a vengeance ahead of Tom Bews sailing to 1-3-3-2-2 finishes and 11 points with daughter, Aubrey, and her friend, Catherine Lawrence.

 
(l to r) Cathertine, Tom and Aubrey   Eric Rasmussen photo



 
Wendell and Leigh   Eric Rasmussen photo

Series 4th went to Wendell Gundlach and Leigh Wulforst who placed 3-4-5-3 in the four Saturday races before taking the Sunday off. Likewise for David Duff and Alan Backus who sat out the cooler Sunday after scoring 5-5-4-5 the previous day.


Alan and David   Eric Rasmussen photo

 
Bart and Janet   Eric Rasmussen photo



No Contest as Strebs and Their Buc Dominate Open Fleet

It looked like things were lonely at the top of the Open Fleet as Bart Streb and wife, Janet, cruised to victory in all five races of the Open series in their Buccaneer Adrenalin.

 
"Silver" was taken by Brad Earle and Cabel Vogel sailing an Isotope, the lone multihull in HOT 8.   Eric Rasmussen photo

Series 3rd went the regatta's smallest boat, a Holder 14, which was helmed by Kim Wise with her husband, Mark, as         crew. In her first turn at the tiller in a major regatta, Kim scored a respectable 3-3-2 before having to pack it in with a sore shoulder.


Mark and Kim   Eric Rasmussen photo

 
4th overall was the other Buccaneer sailed by Marie Lyne Lavoie and Otto Afanador.   Eric Rasmussen photo