| Rock
Hall 2004 Regatta Report by Uncle Al |
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Keep ..  Rock Hall is a small town set on the quiet and still unspoiled For the Wayfarers, the weekend began with a Thursday evening get-together at the lovely home of Frank Pedersen and his wife, Sue, in Chestertown. Uncle Al was the only guest to arrive early for the ..  The next morning's River Race attracted about 25 boats of all kinds. As we went to register at the race's starting point, the Chester River Yacht and Country Club, the next morning in warm, humid sunshine and a light breeze blowing down the Chester River, we discovered that the price was right: entry was free even though there were fine prizes to be won and great munchies for all at the Rock Hall YC after the race. From our start at the CRYCC, it was about 12 miles to the mouth of the In rather patchy conditions, the early lead went to John Macielag in his International 14, Mr. Redmond in his Highlander (a 20' centreboard boat weighing about 1000 lbs.), and Mr. Arends in an A Cat racing catamaran. These three pulled away from our Wayfarer vantage point throughout the rest of the race and ended up With the top 5 long since disappeared over the horizon off our hazy bow, we had to find our own way to the finish line which was to be between a government buoy #5 and a committee boat around Nichols Point on Quaker Neck. We could see the 14 way past the point and became a bit confused but Bill came up with a SHADES first - a pair of good binoculars - and soon confirmed that #5 was right where we had been told it would be. So, we cruised across the line and declined - with thanks - the offer of a beer from the RC. We did have our own beer, after all. Nick, the only other spinnaker-driven W, came in about 6 minutes later on. An increasingly hot afternoon made swimming an obvious attraction as we dawdled along side by side towards the beach at the Rock Hall YC which would be our home for the next two days. Only later, when the non-spinnaker W's - Frank Pedersen and Bill Harkins who had arrived with Margie McKelvey and their cruise-rigged W just before the race - came cruising in to the beach, did we hear about the jelly fish that can make swimming a bit painful later in the season. While Bill hauled out because he could only stay the Friday, the other three W's were duly hauled up onto the beach beyond the high tide line - not a long pull since the water level only changes about one foot in this lovely area. For an hour or so, we lounged around the beach and traded Wayfarer stories while enjoying the sounds of RHYC Commodore, Chuck Parry, up to his waist in the shallow water 100 yards off the beach, as he used a bullhorn to orchestrate a bunch of RHYC Juniors sailing Optis all around him. Chuck does a heck of a lot around RHYC, and that includes teaching the Juniors five days a week all summer. How many Commodores do we know who do that??!! Eventually, we drifted over to the well stocked RHYC bar where Al discovered he had "connections" - the bartender was none other than Al's gracious host, Lee, who promptly introduced the SHADES team to Dark and Stormies, a concoction made of dark Bermudan rum and ginger beer which Bill and I appreciated for a few hours. The slight cloud in Al's sky, the little matter of no crew for the next day, evaporated when Bill returned to the bar after a brief absence to announce that his girlfriend, Nancy, had kindly agreed to put off Bill's promised floor-laying activities for a week so that Bill could crew for Al the next day. We completed a fine day as Nick and Mary Seraphinoff dragged us off to treat us to some of those famous As we entered the kitchen the next morning freshly showered in our own bathroom upstairs, Lee already had the coffee ready and was making us a lovely breakfast of eggs and hash which easily and deliciously sustained us through a full racing day. Friday had been a great day, but Saturday promised to be even better: a front had come through, taking the humidity with it and we were left with warm sunshine and 10-15 knots of breeze all day. ..  The course racing was a unique experience, surrounded as we were by several types of boats we never meet in Canada such as Highlanders (3), Hamptons (a well matched fleet of 7 of these boats that look like a larger, sleeker version of a Snipe), three A Cats, four Sunfish, five 5-0-5's and of course, the ubiquitous Lasers - 11 of them. We three W's were combined in a start with the Highlanders as Dyer Harris' race committee worked to streamline starting sequences. And did they ever do a great job! No waiting around for starts twiddling your thumbs. ..  We got in four four-leg races (Course A above), yet still were done by about mid-afternoon. SHADES showed no ill effects from her re-done decks and bilges and - ably assisted by Bill Bagwill, my rookie crew with a steep learning curve and lots of fresh bruises by day's end - rolled to 4 firsts in Al's favourite conditions: oscillating shifts. Back on the beach, we had ample time for talking spinnakers, etc. and how Al should have taken out the camera since conditions looked breezier when we first went out than they ended up being. Eventually we ran out of boat beer and wandered up to the bar where preparations for the big buffet supper were well underway. It was a lovely day for sitting out on the deck instead of inside the nicely air-conditioned clubhouse. The Wayfarer group was soon joined by Brian DeBrincat, son of W1115, Joe DeBrincat, who works locally for Quantum Sails and regaled us with some stories about his world travels as a sailmaker when he wasn't busy sharing childhood memories with Nick's daughter, Julie. Before dinner, we were joined by Anastasia Hopkinson and her friend, Hugh. Anastasia is the new owner of Wanderer, which Lee Hughes sailed up the east coast of the "Are you Al?" he enquired. After I had admitted that I was, the 5-0-5 sailor continued, "I'm Allie Meller and I was crew for Richard Storer in the Wayfarer Canadian Nationals in nineteen seventy …" "… eight!" Uncle Al completed, "at Outer Harbour Centreboard Club." Then Al had to explain that no one has sailed a W across the Atlantic, and that all Frank Dye had done in the early 60's, was to sail Scotland to Iceland in 1963 and Scotland-Faroes-Norway in 1964 where he made the movie and broke his mast half-way across. Talk like this made us all good and hungry for the lovely dinner highlighted by steak and salmon, after which we did lots more chatting over drinks. Not to late, people drifted off to get some well earned sleep - some in tents on the spacious, flat club grounds. Our new Wayfarer friend, Bill Bagwill, had to leave for home but promised to be with us again for this regatta next year. After another lovely night and breakfast at Lee and Karin's, Al was (fairly) ready for the final regatta day to begin - an apparent carbon copy of the previous perfect day. As Al sat out on the patio after breakfast having a smoke, the breeze was already blowing a nice 5 to 10 knots, and his thoughts turned to Siobhan Roddy, his intended crew for the day. Would she be able to find the club? Would she get there in time for a Unerringly guided by Map Quest, Siobhan did appear, shortly after nine, as did the other two W teams. Most of the other boats had by this time left to cross A rare poor start in Sunday's first race for Uncle Al, and both Frank and Nick made the most of it in breezes that were beginning to die down to 5 to 8-knot patches. Frank and Sarah went up the right side of the first beat and caught an oscillation perfectly to round a couple of hundred yards ahead of Nick and Julie with Al and Siobhan a fairly close 3rd. Team Pedersen finally got their spinnaker going in fine style on this day and pulled away down the run of a B-type course (windward-leeward-windward). Al had not had time to run his new crew through many routines in the rush to get to the start, and poor Siobhan had to very quickly learn a few bits about the spinnaker as we went down this leg in pursuit of the leaders. As classes were in session, Al tightened his grip on last place, such that SHADES rounded onto the final beat a good 100 yards behind Nick and almost a quarter mile behind Frank and Sarah. Having done well on the right side of the first beat, Frank went right again, as did Nick. Just to do something different, Al tacked at the mark where starboard was giving a considerably better angle towards the finish line. Still, Frank and Nick did not tack, and Al explained to Siobhan that the leaders were leaving a door open for us: If the wind should oscillate back to the left and we should get knocked by 30°, we might give the leaders a race yet. Instead, something else happened: Frank and Nick finally tacked, only to sail into a huge hole. While they sat in frustration, SHADES skipped from wind patch to wind patch going middle left, then got the 30° knock to add insult to injury, and won a race she had no business winning! We got in one final race as the dead spots were increasingly frequent in the 5 to 8 knots of prevailing breeze. This time, team SHADES made no mistakes and led from start to finish as Siobhan showed an excellent talent for making small jib sheet adjustments as the breeze came and went. She had also learned very well from a few practice spinnaker gybes we had done while running back down to the start area after race 1. As we finished the race, the RC informed us that racing was done for the day - welcome news for Al who had discovered an eye doctor's appointment for Monday at A quick and easy haul-out at the ramp and SHADES was road-ready by shortly after I hated to rush off, but the eye doctor - my first visit in at least 15 years! - waits for no man. So, with heartfelt thanks to the Rock Hall Yacht Club in general and to my hosts, Lee and Karin in particular, and already looking forward to a return visit next year on June 17-19, I hit the road. First stop Chestertown where I hoped to get a good coffee for the road at Panache, a "designer" coffee shop I had discovered on Thursday. A reflection of the sleepy nature of the area was that it had closed for the Sunday at Even in the Sunday afternoon rush, the traffic was fast moving except for a short stretch of I-95 between Baltimore and Washington, and it was an easy drive. I made my planned overnight stop about 5 hours into the nine-hour drive in the mountains of eastern NY State in A marvellous weekend all in all - one to rival the |
| The Rock
Hall 2004 River Race & Regatta River Race results Regatta results report pictures: Thursday Friday - 1 Friday - 2 Friday - 3 Saturday - 1 Saturday - 2 Sunday |