The White Rose Colonial Cup Regatta

AKA the Happy Belated Birthday Sara Regatta

By Dave Brawner

 

The White Rose MYC held their first of hopefully many regattas this past weekend at Codorus State Park near Hanover, PA. There were seventeen entries including first time starter Jim Hermann of State College MYC. Chuck Aiken along with family and friends ran the regatta to perfection.

 

The lake is over 1,700 acres with a real nice setting and good facilities. We were sort of tucked into a cove, which made the winds a bit tricky. The most interesting part was when the wind came out of the East, which was to our right. The chop then had the full length of the lake to build. In those conditions, the chop was often stronger than the breeze. Getting the last 20 feet to the finish was agonizing unless you were the lucky one that found that one extra puff.

 

Under Chuck’s guidance we managed 13 races with all competitors racing at once on Saturday. The rain caused the only delay during the day. It came down fast and furious for a while but we all hid under canopies that were supplied by the host club. Once the rain stopped we were treated to a home cooked pit beef and corned venison lunch.

 

Saturday’s racing was mostly from the right to left with the windward marks further up the cove. Finding enough breeze to get you around the windward mark was a chore at times. Add in the fact that sixteen other boats searching for that one desperate puff and you were thankful just to get on your way downwind. No lead was safe in these conditions. Lead changes were normal on the final leg. A familiar phrase was "oh, I should have stayed inside" or "I should have stayed outside".

 

After racing on Saturday, Doug Wotring and Matt Houghton brought out their mini-twelves. It’s a one-man 12-foot version of a 12 meter. Several skippers stuck around to have some informal racing before dinner. This was Mark Rinehart’s first time in a "real" sailboat. Take my word for it, we was fast in that boat too.

 

Dinner was at Chuck’s house. This was such a treat. You need some more detail to appreciate this. First, Chuck and Sally have 10 kids. It’s one of the few households that could run a promotion/relegation system at each meal. We were jokingly told that we weren’t allowed in the house if we had a backpack. The reason became clear when they told us several people have come to dinner and ended up staying for years. No lie. Actually, this regatta dinner was as good as it gets for the EC12 family. With a large family, you can imagine the size of the dinner table. Most of the fleet could sit around it all at once. We can not say thank you enough for inviting us into your house for a wonderful evening. And yes Sally, we all left.

 

The entertainment portion of the evening was supplied by none other than our own Scott Todd with his version of how he forgot his girlfriend, Sara’s birthday back in July. With every word, you could see Scott sinking deeper and deeper into that hole. The birthday cake helped but I think Scott was hoping to use his throw out on this one.

 

The scores were posted to the scoreboard overnight and we got our first chance to see them on Sunday morning. Mark Rinehart had a nine-point lead followed by Danny Thomas, myself and Ivor Walton. The sky was clear and the wind had shifted to come out of the East. We sailed until 1pm. The scores were posted after racing was finished. This was an interesting twist. None of us knew where we stood in the rankings. It became more interesting when the scores were reveled.

 

Danny and I were tied at the top with 50 points and Mark had 51. I got the win on the tiebreaker with 10 firsts to his 4. The top three spots all came down to the last leg of the last race. I rounded the final marker with a lead over Danny. I came to the shore with a higher angle but took the risk of the wind disappearing. Danny went outside to get a bit more breeze. His distance to the finish was greater but then so was his speed. Halfway up the leg, my wind went away. Somehow Danny is on a reach and flying to the finish. My boat caught the breeze just in time to start my heart pumping again. What had been a 20-yard lead had shrunk to a boat length at the line. Mark lost one position while doing a 360 for hitting the final mark. Without that, we would have ended up in a three-way tie. Thankfully, none of us knew how important that race was.

 

All through the regatta, Al Sellers always seemed to be the boat with speed when others were sitting still. Whenever there was a pack of boats searching for wind, you could count on Al to find it first. Pete Houghton continues to show improvement. One race, he led the fleet to the windward mark. Fred Maurer sailed a great regatta and would have finished higher except for his troubles with the far leeward mark. His boat just didn’t seem to want to go all the way to that mark. With a smile, a "phooey" and a quick circle back around the mark, Fred was on his way again.

 

The racing was fun, the food was delicious and the hospitality was great. To Chuck and the White Rose MYC, we say thank you and hopefully, you’ll do this again.

 

Picture Links: http://userweb.suscom.net/~ceheisler/     

Even more pictures.

 

Name

Place

Points

Dave Brawner

1

50

Danny Thomas

2

50

Mark Rinehart

3

51

Ivor Walton

4

83

Al Sellers

5

96

Rick West

6

104

Jack Kendra

7

122

Fred Maurer

8

162

Matt Houghton

9

183

Scott Todd

10

186

Tony Bollers

11

200

Bob Kjellberg

12

203

Joe Cole

13

213

Doug Wotring

14

238

Russ Dukehart

15

246

Pete Houghton

16

258

Jim Hermann

17

302