Recaps - Ted Greene's "Thrill Seeker" wins M17 Bluewater Regatta by 11 points

Location: Blogs MC Fleet 4 Recaps
Posted by: Fleet 4 Administrator	6/18/2007 6:15 AM
The sailing gods smiled on Crystal Lake as the Bluewater M17 Regatta kicked off Saturday morning with 15-20 mph winds from the south. Ted Greene was kind enough to pull his hull out of storage and turn it over to a couple of M17 novices, Rob Terry and yours truly. The first race was rather spectacular as Charlotte, NC pro Bill Wiggins stuck his bow in a wave and did a high speed cartwheel that would make a cat sailor proud. His wife (crew) immediately came down with a case of heavy air flu and left Bill searching for crew on the shore. We rounded in the top 5, hunted down a big black cannon ball and smoked the fleet to the bottom mark. We extended and won by a large enough margin to go back to the club and change to warmer clothes before the next race. The breeze and waves built a little for the second race as Brian McMurray led the fleet to the first mark. We got the kite up quicker and immediately rolled him. A few moments later I looked over and noticed our starboard upper sidestay was swinging in the breeze. We cranked the vang and mainsheet then jibed over to port to take the load off that side. I grabbed a shackle off the lifting bridle while Rob drove the boat and flew the kite over the 2 foot chop in 20 mph breeze. How the stick stayed in the boat I have no idea. By the time we got repaired, we had lost Brian and 1-2 others. At the end, we couldn't quite catch Brian and settled for a 2 in what was arguably our best effort of the weekend. A third race was sailed before lunch and we were able to get things dialed in a little better and won by a larger margin than the first race. The breeze let up in the afternoon as we sailed 2 more races in 6-12 mph. Knowing our heavy air advantage was gone, we were ready to take some hits in the lighter breeze. Bob Wynkoop with June Howell had a pair of killer starts and looked very fast up the beat. We rounded with the leaders but sailed off to oblivion as most of the fleet jibed over and caught solid breeze along the shore. We found ourselves in 9th at the bottom and were fortunate to fight back to a 5th in the end. E Scow Champion Tom Munroe, crewing for his 13 year old son Tommy, finished 3rd (we have not stopped hearing about that). The fifth and final race of the day had a little more breeze. We struggled for the first couple of legs before a good final downwind allowed us to get an inside overlap on a large pack of boats. We left the mess behind and went on to a solid 2, taking a 13 point lead to dinner that evening. Sunday morning brought an uncommon easterly with moderate pressure and 9 miles worth of chop. We led for a while, then let Wiggins go as we covered our three nearest competitors. A nice 2 gave us a 17 point lead and the option to put the boat on the trailer with a dying breeze. We decided to sweat it out with the rest of the fleet as the breeze got unstable. We had a decent lead half way up the second beat before sailing back and forth a few times while 6-7 boats sailed by. Bill Wiggins was great in the light stuff and won both races. Mary Anne Ward looked faster than anyone upwind in the light to moderate and was able to take second overall with a nice 4 and 3 morning. Results: http://www.clyc.net/scores/m-17-bluewater.htm After the trophies, Candi, June and Mary Anne all did a nice job hyping LESC and its great events, inviting everyone to come down and sail next year. Hopefully I will be able to walk and hold a mainsheet by Wednesday when we head over to Torch!

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