CNU Sailing

On Saturday the races were postponed in the morning until 11:45 due to limited visibility from fog and variable winds. Wind filled and we had east southeast 5-10 for the rest of the day. Courses sailed were modified Olympics and modified gold cups.  There were 3 protests resulting in 3 DSQ’s. Coaches Ward Cromwell, Allison Jolly, and Dan Winters heard protests.  Thanks to Dr. Benjamin Cuker, HU sailing’s faculty advisor, for providing his boat for Race Committee.  And thanks to Mike Park for volunteering to help out with race committee.

Sunday’s breeze was plentiful all day.  Morning races sailed in WSW 15-22, breeze built in the afternoon to 20-28.  Courses sailed were Gold cups and the last B race sailed a modified triangle.  One protest was heard resulting in a DSQ.  Thanks to the coaches who heard the protest.

The team finished up on Saturday in fifth place, but in the stronger winds on Sunday, our team of rather new sailors slipped to sixth. Still, this was a fine showing. Both of our crews, Brennan and Meghan, are brand new this semester. Tyler, our B Skipper is also new to the team and CNU this spring. Our finish was exactly the same as last year when we used a combination of nearly all of our team members rather than a team of relatively new sailors.

In every way, this regatta was a good one, not just for the actual finish, but also for the valuable experience it gave some of our newer sailors. Congratulations to Maxwell, Meghan, Tyler and Brennan for a very good weekend.

IMAGE: Back: Maxwell Plarr, assistant coach, Matt Lythgoe, and Tyler Myers. Front: Brennan Russell and Meghan Magee.

The regatta began with 12 new boats on site and perfect wind conditions. The shifty 5-6 kt Northerly let some teams really put to use the team racing skills they have been honing. Two full rotations were completed on Saturday that consisted of 56 races. Our judges, which consisted of two US sailing trained judges on one boat and another boat of former college sailors, made for very fair racing. Calls were made in about every third race. One protest was heard on land and cost CNU their perfect record.

Sunday morning had Colgate and Maryland sailing a tie-breaker after a short wind delay with Colgate moving on.  The fleets were then divided into Gold and Silver and 6 more races were completed in each division. The double full rotation worked well and seemed the only format because of only having 12 boats.  Over the course of 68 races each team sat out for a total of 8 races. If we had chosen to start in a two division format, the number of sitting sailors would have tripled.

Needless to say, our team sailed well. Working to perfect our 2-on-2 sailing has done much to improve our sailing in general and our understanding of the rules in particular. Right now, we are just sorry we don’t have more 2-on-2 events in which to compete. We will be sailing in the Army 2on2 at West Point later in the spring. We expect this discipline to draw more and more interest and the spring of 2010 should see even more 2on2 events to compliment the growing interest in 3-on-3 racing among the biggest teams.

It seems the east coast is having wind problems this spring. For the second straight week CNU hasn’t had wind on Sunday. Last weekend it was with cold temperatures, drizzling rain and an overcast sky. This week it was with a sunny day, a clear sky, and relatively warm conditions – still no wind. Fortunately, the attending teams are all good friends and after a morning of socializing on Sunday, everyone got on the road early for the trip home.

However, Saturday gave us just enough wind for two sets of preliminary races and one set of finals. The format was to run two sets of prelims and then split the fleet into an upper group of four and a lower group of four to better match teams of similar abilities. It all worked well, except for the wind. Another advantage of sailing the fleet in groups of four is that only six races are needed for each team to sail against the others in its group and twelve comprise a full set. Thus, we can and did have a legal regatta. If we had been sailing all teams against all others, we would need 28 races for a complete rotation and a legal event.

The winning team for the Regatta and the Silver Fleet was Fordham with Joe Turchiaro, Sarah McKay, Dave Purinton and Hallie Peterson. Congratulations to Fordham for winning the abbreviated event.

The Christopher Newport Silver Fleet team was Ben France, Lynn Ball, Jessica Thal, and Tyler Million. Congratulations to our CNU 2 team with Maxwell Plarr, Meghan Magee, Tyler Myers, and Brennan Russell for winning the Blue Fleet Series.

Special thanks got to John “Doc” Griffin from William & Mary for bringing his “bodiak” power boat to carry the coaches around the course. John was also our Protest Chairman and we’ll be looking forward to working with him on the South Qualifier at Hampton later this spring.

Many thanks are due Kate McClintock, our CRO, and CNU team members, Taylor Gray, Evan Miller, Taylor Morgan, Katlin Kitchen, Dara Gruber, and Rececca Kiehne. Never have we had such enthusiastic and complete support of an event by the team. They were great.