2004 Columbia EC12 Regatta

Region 2 Championship

By Jarl Wathne, MD

 

The 5th Annual Columbia EC12 Regatta dawned cool and windy for 2004. The wind was out of the south all day Saturday, making for long windward legs on the 2nd lap. The fourteen skippers sailed twelve races on Saturday and eight more on Sunday, and were granted two throwouts. All the sailing was done from the belltower dock.

 

H. S-Whalen went wire-to-wire for the first win, with D Thomas and M Rinehart following. But the next twelve races were won by either Thomas or Rinehart. Thomas had a bad 2nd race, while Rinehart won to take the overall lead. He held that lead until the last race on Saturday, when Thomas won to go ahead by two pts. Meanwhile, R West was sailing fairly consistently in the front of the pack to end the day in 3rd, five pts. Ahead of A Sellers. S-Whalen finished in 5th Saturday, one pt. ahead of J Cole.

 

Sunday started with the same southerly cool wind, but later it became a westerly. Rinehart tied it up again with a win in the 1st race. In the 2nd race, Sellers got one of his two wins that day to close within one pt. of West, but Thomas got a redress average of two pts. to jump back in the lead. Rinehart tied him yet again in the 5th race with his eighth bullet of the regatta. But Thomas closed strong, beating him by one position in each of the last three races, including wins in the final two races, to win the regatta by three pts.. West held on to take 3rd place by one pt. over Sellers, while S-Whalen was comfortably in 5th. Cole ended in 6th with M Houghton showing glimpses of future speed, including a win on Sunday. Congratulations to the 2004 Region 2 Champion, Danny Thomas.