.
Rock Hall 2004
Regatta Report
by Uncle Al
Chesapeake's Eastern Shore provides glorious and unique new setting that is ideal for Wayfarers!

Keep June 17-19, 2005 open on your calendars, fellow Wayfarers, if you like to travel with your Wayfarer and get a unique and most enjoyable event as your reward for a nice, scenic trip down to the Chesapeake Bay! On June 18-20, 2004, Wayfarers made their debut as a class in the Rock Hall YC's annual Chester River Race (Friday) and Summer Regatta (Saturday and Sunday). This after long-time Wayfarer, Frank Pedersen - the only W at Rock Hall - let the cat out of the bag in an innocent email inviting another Washington, DC area Wayfarer to try the RHYC and its great regatta. In extolling the virtues of his club and its Summer Regatta, Frank was - if anything - understating its attractions. And he created a monster. Frank's long-time Wayfarer friends, Nick Seraphinoff and Uncle Al, saw the great possibilities, and decided to join in the fun. Poor Frank! He had been planning to miss the 2004 event and stay in Maine where he has nearly completed building "a Wayfarer on steroids" - a wooden, multi-chine keelboat which he looks forward to sailing when at his summer home in Maine. But now had to come back for the event. And like the rest of us, he is glad that he did!!
 ..

..
Rock Hall is a small town set on the quiet and still unspoiled Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay about an hour's drive SE of Baltimore, Maryland (9 hr 05 min of driving from Uncle Al's Oakville, Ontario home according Map Quest's excellent directions). The area is steeped in rich maritime traditions with endless miles of protected sailing waters backed up by quiet, pretty farm country and the occasional small town. The sailing waters are shallow and mostly protected, yet the flat country allows the winds to blow relatively unimpeded. In this area, it is easy to remember that sailing is the most important thing in life!

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 5:30 start time as most of the other Wayfarers were delayed by violent electrical storms that knocked out power in many areas and caused major traffic jams. Sue, her daughter-in-law, Kim, and Uncle Al bravely tested food and beer, as storms moved past Chestertown on all sides but never really hit the Pedersen home. Eventually, we got everyone in from various destinations, some of these quite distant: Frank's daughter, Sarah, had flown in all the way from Boise, Idaho, to be his crew, and Nick Seraphinoff's daughter, Julie, had come on a flight from Detroit. Over all kinds of fine munchies and drinks, we got to meet and exchange ideas with several Washington area W's. At the same time, Frank, Nick and Al had a lovely reunion a they relived the glorious days of the early 70's when Nick and Al would come down in early May and in early October each year to challenge fast Frank on his home ground at Podickory Point near Annapolis on the other side of the Bay. We also got to meet new Wayfarer, Bill Bagwill (W3627), who had kindly let himself be pressed into service as Al's crew for the next day's River Race when Marc Bennett was unable to get off work for this long anticipated event. Honorary Wayfarers, Lee and Karin Cowperthwait, were also with us, and had volunteered to give Al a home for the weekend. The email had made the offered accommodations sound pretty enticing but fell far short of doing justice to the lovely Cowperthwait home, re-built beautifully around the historic brick walls after a disastrous fire gutted the house in the early 90's. Surrounded by Karin's lovely gardens, the house is out in the country and provided a peaceful setting where Al fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow - after one final beer and a few interesting sailing tales from Lee in the lovely kitchen.
..

..
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 Chester River here we would make a right turn to a finish line off the RHYC (see course above). And we were in luck: this year the one-knot tide would be with us. A NE wind of about 3-5 knots sent us across the start line just after 11 a.m. while a healthy fear of being over early and having to battle the tide coming back to re-start, kept us all well behaved and no one had to be recalled.

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 1-2-3 on corrected time. The light winds meanwhile, gave Al's rookie crew, Bill Bagwill, a chance at some on-the-job training. In winds that came and went, Bill did a fine job and was soon good enough to permit Al to get the camera out and take a few pictures of the surrounding fleet and the lush green river banks in the background. After taking a brief time-out, the wind returned from a generally westerly direction, and we ended up beating the rest of the way to the finish.  It took the other two A Cats about half a mile and a mile respectively to pass us before they too, disappeared in the haze in front of us, and we settled into 6th place for the rest of the race (4th on corrected time). The winds gained some strength as we neared the river mouth - still patchy but up around 5 - 8 knots. It was a good feeling to be in a Wayfarer with its kick-up centreboard and rudder as we tacked back and forth across the river and its many sandy or muddy shallows. Bill and I ran aground once, briefly. After I commented that I supposed this was part of the complete Chester River experience, Bill was heard to mutter something to the effect that he hoped I wouldn't take the search for the complete experience too far - like to a capsize!
 
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 Chesapeake Bay crabs at Waterman's in Rock Hall. It was Al's first trip to a crab shack and he enjoyed watching the day's left-over aggressions being malletted out on the poor defenseless crabs. Showing special enthusiasm for whacking the crabs were the two daughter crews, Julie and Sarah, who seemed see the crabs symbols of their helms/fathers!! Well stuffed, we headed home around 10 p.m. with Uncle Al leading Bill who would join him this night at Lee and Karin's - both of us following Mary who said she could guide us to the turn-off to Lee's place. Soon, we were having a night cap with Lee and Karin before getting a great and welcome night's sleep.
 
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 US last year, and previous to that was Frank Dye's boat. Unfortunately, Anastasia was unable to get Wanderer ready in time for the River Race, but she did give us an update on Lee Hughes and lots of other interesting tales. There was a slight interruption to the pre-dinner festivities when Uncle Al overheard talk about crazy Wayfarers from the near-by 5-0-5 table. In mock outrage, Uncle Al stomped over, ready to do (verbal) battle, but already the speaker was getting up with a surprised look on his face.

"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 10 a.m. first start? Nick had called Siobhan on Thursday night and she had said she'd be there, no problems. But, we hadn't heard anything since.

 
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 Lankford Bay towards the start area in an already brisk offshore breeze of 10 to 15 knots. So we had to move it a bit. As we arrived, the outstandingly helpful RC asked whether all the W's were now here. When we confirmed this fact, they inserted us into the start sequence right away - without the Highlanders this time. They had oddly chosen not to sail the Sunday races. I missed them as they had been fun to race with.

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 11:30 a.m. in his calendar and would have to leave as early as possible.
 
A quick and easy haul-out at the ramp and SHADES was road-ready by shortly after 1 p.m., albeit with Al making a mental note to rinse off the salt water residue as soon as he got home. Awards were begun in short order with the many winners eloquently and deservedly praising the Rock Hall YC, its committees and many helpful members for giving us a fantastic weekend. And the awards matched the excellence of the entire weekend: there were big trophies for the winner of the biggest fleet and the straight-time winner of the River Race plus lovely blue engraved highball glasses for helm and crew of the top 3 in each class plus a beautifully embroidered tote bag for the winning helm in each of the Summer Regatta's many classes.

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 3:30 p.m., so I tried the elegant tea room across the road - somewhat emebarrassed at being underdressed in the swimming trunks and T-shirt I had worn while sailing. The maître d' turned out to be one of our bartenders from the previous night at RHYC and she didn't bat an eyelash at my informal attire and went to brew me a fresh Bodum jar of coffee. One last reminder of the beautiful hospitality as she gave me the coffee "on the house". Who could ask for anything more?!

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 Cortland by just after 10 p.m., had a good night's sleep in a hotel, and was off again by 6:30 a.m., making it home in easy traffic by 10:30 a.m. An hour to spare before my doctor's appointment - which a note on the door told me had been cancelled by Julia who had been sure I had forgotten it.

 
A marvellous weekend all in all - one to rival the Cottonwood and the Midwinters, one to remember for a lifetime, one to attend next year with more Wayfarers to improve on perfection! Many, many thanks to the Rock Hall YC, to Frank and Sue for inviting us, to Lee and Karin, for putting me up and putting up with me, to Commodore, Chuck Parry, and Dyer Harris and to their committees for the great sailing, to Madame Commodore for the fine food (and company in the "smoking lounge"!) and to all our fellow sailors who were so much fun to be with! See you next year - for sure!!

...
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