The winner of the coveted perpetual “Shovel” award this year went to Team Annie (SDYC)! For those in the dark (I was), this is presented at the banquet on Saturday eve as a precursor to who will own it on Sunday after all races are finished. The was I see it now, win it all, or lose it all if you want to be remembered. Anyone in-between first and last will be lost in the shuffle.
OK so for the real report, to prepare, I raced with J-OK in the Jon Dekker Memorial, J/105 Class Championship and we won, sailed with Bennet [Greenwald] on Perseverance in a few races, and our Masters team practiced as a full team for the first time on Wednesday and Thursday before the event. Sam Peterson, our bowman, had a heart attack the previous Sunday and had 2 stints put in to save his life. We replaced him with Kai Scharnweber who regularly sails with CC Rider.
My crew consisted of all SDYC members: Casey Schnoor, Dave Vierreg, Julie Mitchell, Dana Gaffney, John Reiter, and Kai Scharnweber.
Because we were light (3 women = less than 2 men) we had 7 pairs of hands which was great. Too bad it was light all weekend.
As for conditions, there was nothing normal about South Bay. The wind was from the south, it was super shifty with no consistency, and it might have been over 9 knots once or twice in the 3 day event. Mostly it was around 5-7, painful in these boats.
Susie Graff did an excellent job of managing the RC and getting races off after a few postponements.
I’ll admit I don’t think I’ve ever sailed in tougher conditions coupled with the fact that these boats are dog slow in light wind and I couldn’t get off the line with speed except for maybe twice in 11 races. It was frustrating and yet, when we had clear air we were fast. Crossing tacks with legends was good stuff. And we were fast enough to be close in points with Carruthers full pro team after 8 races. We beat them 4 times, and they beat us 4 at the end of Saturday, and we were only a few points apart with Craig Healy and a few other great teams. We were in good company, but it didn’t feel so good. I’m not used to being last…
It was nice to have people come out and watch and we had a large cheering section on Saturday with signs supporting us saying Go SDYC and Go Team Annie!.
Our best race we finished 3rd, and had a few others that felt better, a 5th and 7th, but my lack of good starts, even with changing out our tactician, wasn’t even close to the finesse, expertise, and experience of the winning team of Augie Diaz driving with Mark Reynolds calling the shots, Benny Mitchell, Chuck Sinks, Craig Leweck, and Al Pleskus doing the rest. They were a full SDYC team minus the skipper and we should be proud of that. 2nd place went to Terry McLaughlin of Canada. There were J/105 World Champions, many Olympic Medalists, and the lists of who’s who was overwhelming so I tried not to think about that and concentrated on our team, keeping us together as a group who at the end of it all were still happy to be in each others company.
I chose my team knowing that there were other teams coming who had grabbed most of our big name rock stars. So I went with people who don’t always get this opportunity of sailing against the best, but they know how to sail J/105’s and they’ve done plenty of high caliber racing. Turns out we didn’t have the wealth of knowledge we needed and I feel that because of the very tricky conditions we were double challenged. Our best race was in what I would consider normal conditions. There was enough wind to start well and sail away.
And this my friends is why the cream rises to the top. Mark is a legend. He knew how to play the fleet, as well as manage their finishes. It was tight at the top and until the last race, 1st place was up for grabs even if Augie’s Team still had the lead.
I’d like to add that I invited Dana Gaffney, a relatively new SDYC member to our team as she is light, strong, smart, and eager to learn. On the last day Julie moved aft into the tactician role and trained Dana how to do bow and she nailed it. Our team never had any issues with boat handling before or after the switch. And we gave someone an opportunity of a lifetime to go for it. So if anyone ever needs someone small for bow, she’s ready!
As for our team, we had a group of fine sailors who got their butts kicked in a very prestigious event that I felt extremely honored to be invited to race in. If I get invited back, I’ll make sure I have more time to sail on slow boats and try to get some rock stars to help me get off the line and manage the fleet.
I think Mark will be spoken for.