Thistle East Coast Fall Series

Sayville Regatta

Full results

The competition began the on thursday night, when a fellow competitor's crew called and invoked the Thistle Fraternity Travel Complication maneuver. After some negotiating, we settled on a simpler strategy that involved her arriving at my house for a ride on saturday morning, and then taking her own car after all, and my crew for company. And getting lost on the way to the yacht club. In retrospect, my crew may have been happy to ride with her. It may have had something to do with the "German Devil Music" as he termed it, that we sometimes use to get motivated on regatta mornings. We arrived and rigged the boat, then called to see where the crew was. "In the yacht club mens room" was the answer. They had resolved their navigational issues and arrived just in time. For the skippers meeting, which was held by the hoist this time, as everyone was down there anyway. There were 5 fierce Thistle competitors, along with Flying Scots and J-22's. Dav e Foster was there with Judd Broun and Heather Thompson. It was Heather's 2nd time on a boat. Tom Lawton was sailing with Sarah Hatsell and Eric Styan; Sam Brauer was with Dave Marseli and Lisa Simmons, Chris Pollak had Jesse Gaylord and Sarah Hamm, and I had Kimberly and Chris Takacs. Chris looked around the parking lost and said "Hmm, going to be some match racing going on". How true it was.

The first race the wind was out of the northeast at about 10-12. We started a little ways down from the boat, flipped to port when we had a chance, and headed for the right. Lawton and Foster hit the left shore hard. We had slightly better pressure, and the right paid. Then we got a big righty, and Lawton and Foster were on the losing end. We were on Pollaks tail around the mark, but then we got rolled by a J22 with the spinnaker up. Decidedly not fast. Pollak legged out and didnt look back. We held on to 2nd as the shift held and turned the remainder of the windward-leeward into a reaching parade. Sam, who had also gone right, was 3rd, followed by Lawton and Foster.

The Second race was a triangle windward leeward. It had clocked right quite a bit, and the RC had adjusted the course accordingly. Based on the results from last time, we all knew the right would pay. Lawton and Pollak tacked to port right after the start, and Brauer and Foster stayed left/middle. We split the difference and played the shifts. Lawton and Pollak hit the layline sooner, and couldn't play the last few shifts. We capitalized on this and rounded first, popped the chute for the reach, and this time it was us who never looked back. Lawton took 2nd, followed by Brauer, Pollak, and Foster. It was remarkable how tight the fleet was. Even with the long courses there was very little separation, and it was clear that any speed differences were relatively minor. Let the chessmatches begin!

For race 3 we again had a triangle. This time the RC caught on to the fact that we were faster than the J-22's in these conditions, and started us before the other two classes. The pin was favored. We reached down from the boat to build speed, but ran out of room with 2 seconds to go. "2874 - Over Early". We ducked back, and flipped to port to get away from the pack. They lead us back right, where we all knew the pressure was. The wind had filled nicely, and we were all 3 fully hiked with the traveller down. We gained steadily on each leg, but the course was not long enough. In the end we caught Foster, But Lawton had taken the bullet, followed by Pollak and Brauer.

Back on shore we realized that we had a 3-way tie, and Lawton was winning the tiebreaker. Brauer was only 2 points behind, and Foster not far behind him.

It was truly a beautiful day - sunny, 80's with nice breeze and the view of the great south bay from the Yacht Club is indeed a sight to behold. The bar served up the local Blue Point ale, and life was good. Ken Boyle had taken pictures of the days racing out on the course, and these were now being played back on a projector for all to see. There were some great shots. Over cocktails, we discussed which Thistlers were the remaining Star Wars characters from last weeks writeup. One-who-shall-remain-shirtless was named Wookie by popular demand, and his fearless middle crew was named Han Solo by association. Sam and crew missed a great dinner as they toured the surrounding area firming up their lodging arrangements, but coupled with the morning's escapades I'm told they now have a fine command of the local geography. Dinner was awesome as usual. Green beans, Grilled teriyaki chicken, potatoes, salad, hot fresh rolls, and many cheesecakes for dessert. Sam and crew arrived just in time and the Sayville folks were nice enough to re-warm some dinner. It was Marcelli's birthday so we sung him songs and Sam had brought an excellent homemade cheesecake for him that we all enjoyed. We moved outside as they closed up the clubhouse, and some folks worked on a bottle of something that was at hand. We turned in relatively early. Most folks camped, but a few of us grabbed hotel rooms.

The next morning we stopped at a local Deli and grabbed some breakfast sanwiches. Kimberly got french toast that had a perfect amount of cinnamon and sugar on it. Very tasty if I say so myself, and a good chaser to my bacon-egg-and-cheese on a bagel.

Out on the water it was blowing harder than the day before. The wind was back left again, out of the northeast, and puffing to 18 or so. They fired off a triangle, and we were off. We didn't feel quite as fast as the day before. Even with the three of us hiked by our toes, the traveller almost all the way down, the main sheeted hard enough to stall the upper telltale, and the outhaul tight we were still having to feather a little. Any more strings to pull? Nope. Sam was below us, and Pollak above coming off the line. We couldn't shake them. After a few minutes we started feeling squeezed and broke right. At the weather mark Sam had the lead, followed by Pollak. The other 3 of us were right together fighting it out. It continued like this around the course, but Pollak nipped Sam on the run. We closed the gap and were 3rd at the leeward mark. We tried to cover the competition on the way up, and split with the leaders when we could. Pollak and Lawton ended up playing the left, while Sam, Dave and I played the right. We were on the upper right side of the course and Pollak came back to get in contact. The wind was starting to get patchier and flukey, and velocity was way down. We took a little knock as Pollak planted a tack on us about 10 lengths up. Could we live? We were lifting into clear air. Would it hold? Pressure built. More righty. More Pressure. We nipped Pollak at the finish, and Brauer managed to get between us.

For the 2nd race, it was getting extremely light. We gave ourselves about 40 seconds to accelerate after tacking to starboard for the start, but it was not enough. The others had built more speed during their approaches and were away. We tried hitting the right hard, but it didn't pay. Someone had forgotten to pay the wind bill, and it had been shut off almost completely. Pollak caught a whisper and ghosted ahead, as did Lawton. We fought it out with Sam and Foster. On the run it looked like it might build back, so we held high, and were looking good on Dave and had gained ground on Sam. But at the end it died, and we had to take a really ugly angle on Starboard gybe to get back towards the mark with the chute full enough to give steerage. We checked the time limit. An hour to go. Looking up course we saw Lawton and Pollak trading tacks. Go Lawton go! We knew that if Tom took it we had a shot at the regatta. Chris caught another whisper and took the gun by a length.

Meanwhile, back in the pack, we had a fight on our hands. Foster was playing hard left. We had managed to climb over Brauer by catching our own little whisper as we headed left to cover, but he was right on our heels, and this was the kind of wind where anything could happen. We tacked just shy of the port layline, expecting a lift. We got a hole. Dave told us later that his crew was like a dog wagging it's tail at the prospect of catching us. We slowly built speed, but trimming was difficult as the telltale yarn was too heavy to be moved by the faint breeze. Sam had gone back right to try to separate. It looked dicey for a bit, but we crossed him with 3 lengths to spare as the lift we expected came in. We had the angle, and were were moving, but barely. The wind shut off. We came in at the pin on momentum more than anything else. We had held off Dave as he had hit the same hole, but we hadn't heard our finish acknowledged, and Sam was approaching on starboard. In what seemed like an eternity, we barely managed to tack the boat around the mark. It was close. We found out on shore we had beaten him. But with Pollak taking the bullet, and putting Lawton between us, we now had identical scores! Unfortunately the tiebreaker goes to the guy with the most recent win. Kind of like most improved? So Pollak took the regatta, we were second, and Lawton third only 3 points behind. The fine folks at Sayville gave us all cool polo shirts with the name of the regatta and our finishing position embroidered on.

The whole yacht club was very nice and most welcoming. They were truly great folks and with the awesome facilities and incredible sailing area right out front it's a wonder they aren't overrun with boats every year. The place has a wonderful feel to it. It's like a whole vacation packed into 1 single weekend!

So next week is Hopatcong. Get ready for some good old fashioned shiftyness. The lake giveth and the lake taketh away. Hopatcong is a great club and a great regatta. I hear the Kitchins are unable to provide housing this year due to the impending wedding of their lovely daughter Jess, so if you have relied on them in the past as I have, be sure to call ahead so other lodging arrangements can be made. I hear Bruce McCutcheon got married this weekend. Congrats!

We, at North Sails One design,
are proud to support the 2006 Thistle ECFS !

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