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By Dave Brawner
There would hardly seem to be a more fitting location for an EC12 regatta than Newport, RI. Everywhere you look there is America’s Cup history. We sailed in Newport harbor off of Fort Adams. Just above one of our marks sat two-time America’s Cup winner Courageous on a mooring. A fleet of 12 meters was sailing in and out of the harbor all weekend long. Just as an added bonus, the J boat Endeavor made her entrance into the harbor under full sail. It was just too cool.
Our sailing took place off an elevated "T" dock with the long windward leeward course parallel to the "T". The wind was steady and strong both days even though it switched 180 degrees overnight. We could not have asked for better conditions or sailing location. Our RD’s for the regatta were John Snow and Ken Shaw and Norma Greenhalgh handled the scoring. We also had the excellent service of Chris Hornick providing and operating the chase boat all weekend.
Our hosts for the weekend were the Museum of Yachting and the Vintage Model Yacht Group. John Snow has been working with the museum all year long on the model yacht exhibit, which takes up the whole 1st floor of the museum. The exhibit is amazing and runs through the end of October at the Museum of Yachting. It’s worth the trip just to see the exhibit. Once you are done with that, take a stroll upstairs for the America’s Cup display. Being an America’s Cup geek, this left me speechless. We were upstairs watching an old video of Freedom beating Australia from 1980. When we looked out the window a moment later, there goes none other than Freedom sailing by the museum.Rick West dominated the racing from start to finish. He won 13 of the 15 heats he sail in. Generally, he was alone on the finishing leg. The conditions were exactly as we have heard him talk about from the West Coast. The wind was strong and varied only a few degrees over the length of the course. Rick made the right call by going with his B rig. This was a boat speed regatta and he had plenty to spare. He went undefeated on Saturday.
With the wind out of the North, the chop built a bit more which took away some of the advantage of the B rig. After starting the day with two second place finishes, Rick adjusted and sailed off to five more consecutive wins before his boat succumbed to salt water infiltration in the last race. After throw-outs, his score was 15 points from 14 scored races. Rick just plain kicked our butt this weekend.
In the mere mortal department, the rest of us were racing for second and survival. I managed to get the second spot with Bob Kjellberg and Hal Slentz-Whalen taking 3rd and fourth. It was nice to see some of our Region 1 friends sailing. Ken Shaw and Paul Fixx came down from Stowe. When Ken’s boat didn’t want to work, he was quickly recruited as an RD. George Greenhalgh, who has a few years on me, sailed the entire regatta except for a couple races when he had to swap out a rudder servo. Chuck Luscomb came from working at the Annapolis boat show to join us for the weekend. I believe this may have been his second EC12 regatta.
We have to give a big thank you to John Snow for arranging this event. He has been working for over a year on this regatta, the J Series and model yacht exhibit. Tremendous effort…thanks.
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