Road To The Cup – Week 15

Road To The Cup – Week 15

Top-10 as of 9/4/16

 

Heartfelt wishes go out to old friend and CYC Race Committee Chair Judy Adam.  Judy stepped awkwardly off a deck and fractured her femur.  She had to undergo surgery and now is concentrating on laying low and healing fast.  As most of you know laying low and taking it easy is not exactly part of Judy’s DNA.  Judy is a massive contributor to Marblehead sailing and has been for quite a while.  In addition to her CYC RC gig, she also is currently MRA Treasurer and probably contributes in other ways most of us never hear about.  So the extended Adam family members could have their hands full for a while getting her to slow down.  Best wishes to Judy for a speedy recovery.

 

Huge thanks to to Vonda & Jim Raisides for hosting the party Saturday night.  As you’d expect, these guys outdid themselves with their graciousness and hospitality.  The weather also accommodated making for a perfect evening in a terrific setting.  Thanks also to Elise & Mike Nash for making sure we all had enough to drink.

 

With Twilights all wrapped up, lets get straight to MRA.  What was to have been a two-day series was shortened to one in deference to the tropical storm coming up the coast.  While the sailing conditions on Sunday were forecast to be a spirited northeasterly in the mid-teens, the issue was more around expected late afternoon deterioration and the clubs preferring not to leave in gangways long enough for Sunday dry sailors to haul.  Forecasters were predicting several days of northeasterly, which is never a good thing for a harbor opening to the northeast.  So we had a one-day, three-race MRA series.

 

Just 11 boats made it out for what proved to be the MRA finale.  Conditions on Saturday were 8-12 out of the east-northeast, with lumpy seas and strong incoming tide early and outgoing tide late.  Starboard tack was a slog, due in part to the sea angle and also to the current.  Port felt better.  Left seemed to pay on most beats, even in some cases despite a righty, which is something you may want to stash in the file along with Norm Cressy’s “When the wind is from Gloucester, head for the beach.”  Thankfully, we got in three nice races.

 

Congratulations to Bill Heffernan & Yati Harsono, who won the day and the series with a convincing 1-3-1 for 5 points.  Bill had it all going on, getting great starts and sailing fast.  Once Bill springs himself and is free to sail his own race, there’s no catching him.  He’s just too fast.  And that’s how things went for him yesterday.  Really well done.  I’m pretty sure the long drive back to Dover was even longer for Renee!  Taking 2nd on a tiebreaker with a line of 4-1-4 for 9 points was Mr. Consistent, Dave Nelson, who turned in his usual quiet but excellent top-3 performance.  And finishing 3rd with a 3-4-2, also for 9 points was Team Frisch/Hourihan.  Honorable mentions go to Team Pendleton Raisides who took 4th with a 2-2-7 for 11 points, and Team Pandapas in 5th with a 5-5-3 for 13 points.

 

So with that, we wrap up another MRA season.  Hard to believe, right?  Seems like we started just last week.  Anyway, for the MRA overall, congratulations to Team Frisch/Hourihan, who for the second straight year have won the MRA title with 107.5 total points across the four series.  Well done.  Taking 2nd with 122 points was Team Pandapas, who managed to hang in there through a season of distraction.  And finishing 3rd was Team Pendleton/Raisides who put up 143 points.  Honorable mentions go to Larry Ehrhardt who took 4th with 150 points, and Dave Nelson who finished 5th with 160 points.

 

In Cup competition, by virtue of his terrific day, Bill Heffernan jumped into the top-10, knocking out the DNC Team Cormer/Dalton.  There were no other changes in the rankings, though there is clearly incentive for several folks to get out there in the fall series and move up a notch or at least defend their positions.  The top-10 are listed below.

 

 

Week 16 racing will include the first day of Fall Series.  The Fall Series uses a different set of sailing instructions which can be found here.

 

Notices

Fall Laser Update  The Marblehead Laser fleet is gearing up for the Laser Masters Nationals on September 30-Oct 2, which will be hosted by EYC.  If you’d like more info or would like to volunteer to help out, contact Patrick Andreasen at andreasensail@gmail.com or 847 624-6005, or visit the event web site.

 

Name That Tune  We all know that Elise Nash is an awesome sailor, but what you may not know is that she is also an awesome landscape architect.  If you want to see some of her work, go no further than some of the new developments on Binney Street in Cambridge or Harvard’s huge Allston development.  Well in case you hadn’t heard, Elise recently took the scary but exciting step of leaving her cushy little 80 hour-a-week job to hang out her own shingle.  So when she’s not sailing, she’s busy setting up shop.  One of the the items on her to-do list is printing business cards, but she can’t decide on a business name to put on them.  That’s where you come in.  Send your suggestions to Elise at elise.mazareas@gmail.com, and we’ll let you know if your suggestion makes the cut.  And by the way, if you happen to need a landscape plan, now you know where to go.

 

Mail Bag

There were just a couple of emails this week, both from Nat Taylor.

 

First, he uploaded the Chicago pre-storm clip we mentioned last week, commenting “Amazing footage – the storm’s edge is wild!”  You can take a look here.

 

Nat also sent this in to enlighten us on the need to clean the bottom once in a while.  “Here are some pics of what the bottom looks like after most of a month with no attention.”  Yum.

 

 

-kp  (kpandapas@comcast.net)