On Saturday my wife and sailing partner Stephanie was away from the lake, so I resigned myself to a day of Laser sailing. My young son, Connor, sailed with his grandfather, Dave Mahan, so I asked for his help in reporting on the action in the Gold Fleet. Tom Wolf served as Race Commander, assisted by his father, Frank Wolf, and nephew Josh Bullock. Winds were light and from the South, with some shifts to the west.
Before noon race committee was not able to find a consistent four knots of wind, so they postponed until after lunch. Around 1:30 the committee sounded a “gather” horn, signaling their intention to start a race one half hour later. The course was set as a port triangle, twice around, with the entire course laid out in view of the Turkey Neck club. That can be a tough area to sail in, prone to strange periodic shifts. Often those with many years of experience on Deep Creek will profit when racing in the South wind off Turkey Neck.
Not long after 1:30 race committee finally had enough wind to start a race, and began sending off the fleets.
In the Gold fleet, Bruce Spinnewebber won the start and broke away early. Mahan was pushed up over the starting line early, but had room to drop back quickly, over the starting line, and begin racing. The wind faded, and the fleet moved up on Spinnewebber. Mahan sailed to right side on the lifted port tack, and reached the windward mark near the front of the pack. The course to the jibe mark was a fairly close reach, so Mahan elected to continue without his spinnaker. Schaefer was able keep his chute full, and eased past Mahan to reach the jib mark first.
The fleet jibe onto port tack at the second mark, and turned down wind. Mahan put the spinnaker up on the downwind leg, while Connor took the tiller. Light wind expert Dick Gregory snuck past Mahan, as did Joan and Lee Coraor. Mahan turned back up wind, and again stayed to the favored right side and worked back up into the fleet before reaching the windward mark. Mahan left the spinnaker on the deck for the second downwind sections, giving up power, but gaining flexibility to sail at the best angles in strange shifts. As the wind shifted briefly to the Northwest during the downwind leg, Mahan again gained ground before turning up wind toward the finish. The wind faded again, and the dash to the finish deteriorated into a slow, tense crawl, with sailors trying to detect small breaths of air before their competitors, and turn the smallest puff into some slight advantage. Grandfather and Grandson plied more that fifty-one years of experience on Deep Creek Lake (more than fifty from Grandfather, more than one from Grandson) to eke out a solid fourth place.
As the Silver, Masters and Challenger fleets closed on the finish, the winds filled back in, and shifted a bit to the west. To make up for the delay in starting the first race, the Race Committee chose to start a second race as soon as possible after the completion of the first. The course layout would be the same, but the second race would be one time around, rather than two.
At the Gold fleet start the shift west made the pin the favored end of the starting line. In a short race there is little time to recover from errors, so boats that start well tend to finish well. The Gold fleet racers with competitive dispositions fought for space to start at the pin. The Gold fleet racers without competitive dispositions had left the Gold fleet long ago. Mahan defended his place on the line well, and accelerated quickly away from the pack at the gun. He found space to quickly break away to the favor port tack, and broke away again for the right side. They reached the windward mark in fourth place, trailing Schaefer, Spinnenwebber, and Gregory. Again Mahan declined to fly a spinnaker, and still made ground on the leaders. He worked his way past Spinnenwebber and Schaefer, leaving only Gregory ahead. Mahan and Gregory rounded the final mark, and set out for the finish. Mahan gave chase, but Gregory is a master of light air sailing, and his crew, daughter Allison Felix is an expert in her own right. The pair defended their position to take the win, with Mahan following in second.
Sunday morning brought rain and brisk west winds. We race in the rain on Deep Creek, but by race time we had scattered lightening. Lightening and sailboats don’t mix, so Race Commander Jon Skoog delayed the races until the rain and thunder passed by. The fleet gathered near the mouth of Poland Run, where Skoog had set the starting line. He had laid out a triangle course between Poland Run and Bull Run. Gust shifted to the south, so that half of the course was sheltered by Turkey Neck point, and half was exposed to the stronger gusts. The preferred triangle for a sailboat race has boats rounding marks with the bouys to the port side of the boat. In a west wind, that would put the jibe mark somewhere in the vicinity of Tom Garwin’s back porch on Turkey Neck point. Therefore, Skoog had laid out a “backwards” triangle windward-leeward, with boats passing marks to starboard, with the jibe mark near the Deerhaven Yacht club. Stephanie was back in the boat, and took the helm. I was in the front seat, serving as crew. As start time approached, the sun came out, and the wind shifted increasingly to the south, exaggerating the difference in wind between the windward end of the course in the slot, and the leeward end behind Turkey Neck Point. The pin end of the line was favored, and it appeared that a boat could nearly reach the windward mark on one port tack leg. Again, most of the Gold Fleet fought or space at the pin. Steph took a risky port tack approach to the time, and came in a few seconds after the gun. In that short space of time, most of the fleet had moved away from the pin, giving Steph a hole to start in. Despite being late, she capitalized on the windward position and eased to the front quickly. Mahan and Schaefer also started in the front of the pack, and quickly broke away. We focused on keeping the boat moving fast through a strange maze of shifts and lulls, and broke out into the slot near the front of the pack. Dick Gregory was closest to leeward of us, with Schafer and Mahan in the hunt. Ace sailors Joni Palmer and Ray Gauthier quickly worked their way to the top of the pack as well. We rounded the windward mark first, with Dick Gregory and Dave Mahan (again sailing with our son Connor) on our heels. We turned toward the jibe mark on a reach, drawing as much speed as possible from out Spinnaker. As we neared sailed to the jib mark the wind faded. The top six boats were now on a fast reaching course, while the remainder of the fleet was left beating in light air. That caused the top pack to separate from the rest of the fleet, give those boats an advantage that the others were unlikely to reverse. We turned to an even tighter reach at the “jibe” mark and held our position. Mahan, unwilling to risk a close spinnaker reach with a light crew faded a bit, but stayed close. On the second beat, the wind shifted back to the west, leaving a more even beat. With another tangle of shifts and puffs, we lost Gregory and Schaefer to round the windward mark third. This time around there was no jibe mark, and we sailed directly to the windward mark. The starboard mark rounding left us in position to attempt to pass Schaefer to windward (without being blanketed by his sails) and still gaining inside position at the mark (normally you must pick one or the other.) We gained ground, and, as we approached the mark, established an overlap. We passed Schafer and turned for the finish. Gregory was on his game, sailing again with Allison Felix. He had no trouble securing the win, leaving us with second, and Schafer third.
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