| the 2007 Rock Hall Weekend Friday: the River Race pics mostly by Uncle Al ... |
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| It takes a little more ... ... |
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| ... effort to put up the mast on
the classic Chesapeake Bay Log Canoe than on a Wayfarer. ... |
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| Make that ... ... |
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| ... masts, plural. What a
lovely-looking ... ... |
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| ... boat and ... ... |
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| ... crew!!! ... |
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| Getting set to hoist to mosquito
sail which will look like ... ... |
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| ... this! ... |
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| Ah! The docks have re-appeared. ... |
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| Marc (red cap) chats with one of
the Lake Eustis teams: (l to r) Dotty
and Mike Murto, Dave and Jane Hepting. ... |
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| Andy Douma is launched - well,
his Wayfarer is launched. ... |
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Jim Lingeman heads out towards
the start line with pick-up crew, Riley Lieber (9) who stuck to the
letter of his "contract". Having been assured the race would last no
more than two and a half hours, Riley got himself taken ashore by one
the the safety boats when his time was done half-way through the race.
... |
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| In these lights airs ... ... |
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| ... it will be ... ... |
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| ... a challenge to ... ... |
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| ... make any headway at all
towards the start line which is 100 yards up-tide. Above, Andy Douma backs down the river with the tide, as he awaits his crew, Joan. ... |
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| Allen Chauvenet and his crew,
Tiffany Cooper, get
organized. ... |
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| No caption needed here, I
suppose: the side of the boat says it all!! ... |
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| Marc and I and the camera have
worked our way - at last - to the right side of the start line with
only minutes to spare before the 11 a.m. scheduled start. 2nd from
right, we can see Allen right near ... ... |
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... the shore (far right) as he prepares to
implement the strategy he would later describe as follows:
..."I thought I was so clever to start by the dock where the channel runs ... looked great for about 30 seconds until breeze came in from the other side of the river and about 15 boats (of course including you) simply vanished ahead of me, never to be seen again other than as small specks on the horizon ..." |
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| Some were lucky enough to get a
tow to the start line! ... |
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| After a couple of general
recalls, this start will finally be a go. ... |
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| It only took the Log Canoe ... ... |
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| ... a few minutes to ... ... |
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... pass us. With their high
sail plan, these guys (and all the Chesapeake 20's) seemed to really
benefit from wind aloft when there was very little to fill shorter
sails (even on the A-Cats!), with the result that, despite sailing what
we thought was an excellent race, we got beaten even on corrected time
by six Chesapeake 20's and the Log Canoe. In previous years, when
everyone had wind to spare, we had always held our own against the
20's.
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| Even the log canoe took well
over two and half hours to complete the race, by which time this young lady must have been getting pretty eager to get up and move around!!! |