The Annual Regatta is a perennial favorite. Several traditions have developed around this event. The first of these being that boats sailing in on the Friday before are invited to stay at the Rock Hall Yacht Club just across the Chester River from the Corsica. Gull, Wanderer, and Sarah K sailed up the Chester to the small docks at the RHYC where they found showers, a pool and a steady flow of Dark & Stormies!
We received a call from Richard McLaughlin that he was having engine start problems with Tenacity and would be a bit late. Shoveller with Mike Crawford aboard arrived later. Well fed and clean, the fleet moved from the dock to the mooring field to anchor for the night, with the exception of Gull who remained on the pier to keep the shore side facilities accessible. That was a bad strategic decision. During the night, the wind switched to the South and the wave trains came rolling up the Chester. The RHYC docks are completely exposed to waves from that direction. Gull and crew spent the night bouncing off the fenders.
Early Saturday morning, the fleet sailed through a light fog to the Corsica River and dropped anchor off the Corsica River Yacht Club property ready for the skippers meeting. During the meeting the sky’s opened up and heavy rain convinced the committee to delay the start a bit.
The only CCBA member not sitting out the downpour was Dave Park who had become concerned with the threatening weather and had started home. He was waiting for the Kent Narrows draw bridge when the deluge struck and was possibly considering changing the name of Sarah K to Sitting Duck.
Catboats are only one class in this Regatta. We share the course with other boats but each class is started separately so part of the challenge is staying out of the way of the classes starting before us while being close enough to be ready when it’s our turn. Gull went out with two reefs in and shook one out before the start of the first race. At the start we found Tenacity waiting for us living up to her name. Richard had sailed to the start line without a working engine and was ready to race. On the first race Gull pulled ahead of everyone else and once in the clean air stayed there. The second race she did it again.
Photo by Steve Flesner
This year the organizers of the barbecue chicken feast Saturday evening had replaced the usual bluegrass band with a DJ. There were an impressive number of participants actually dancing so I suspect that the DJ will be back next year. The night was calm, the beer truck well attended and everyone slept well. No one dragged through the anchorage this year and the participants on their boats were happy that this event had not become a tradition.
The other tradition which has built up through the years is severe thunderstorms which blow through on Sunday. Given the distances to home and Monday being a work day, every one of the Catboats decided to skip any further racing on Sunday and try to beat the bad weather home.
The order of finish for the two races combined was:
Place Boat Skipper
1 Gull Bleil & Ohlmacher
2 Wanderer Cruder & Brown
3 Shoveller Michael Crawford
4 Tenacity Richard McLaughlin
DNS Sarah K. David Park
by David Bleil
