Sign up to Race on a Martin242! Come join the fun. Our skippers are always looking for new crew. Sign up Now!

Midwinters Rock 'n' Roll Sailing!

Posted Sat, 03/06/2010 - 10:01am by mark@overlandca...

There was plenty of rock “n” roll breeze for the California Yacht Club’s Midwinters Regatta. It was in the low teens on Saturday with nearly twice as much on Sunday, resulting in Small Craft Warnings flying from the USCG Station. The wind, combining with an ugly sea state resulted in broken masts in two of the other fleets.

One of the 10-boat Martin 242 class competitors actually ended up swimming! Happily, only briefly. This competitor was not wearing a life jacket and their boat was unable to get back and retrieve her from the cold, steel grey Pacific Ocean. Imagine when your boat is sailing away from you. It gets wet, cold and quiet, fast! It’s you, the water and the fish. (Take a moment and think!)

Fortunately Richard Mainland’s “Off The Wagon” was there to perform the rescue. My hat is off to Richard Mainland and the crew of “Off The Wagon”! They stopped to help a fellow sailor in need, without regard to their own success or standings within the fleet. Corinthian spirit at the highest level! Good on you, Richard Mainland!

Please take a moment to congratulate the current Port Captain of the California Yacht Club. He deserves it! I’d love for the fleet to hear from Barbara as to how it happened and from Richard how long it took to get her out of the water.

As we approached the first leeward mark in the first race we witnessed heartbreak. Mike George's “All In” was heading back to the breakwater with what turned out to be a broken gooseneck. Miraculously, Mike and his crew, including Craig Strand from Vancouver, were able to repair the damage and return to the race course in time to begin the third race.

Trolleycar had already set the pace for the weekend with Peter Stazicker's team leading the scoring with an easy 11-point victory. The Simms twins aboard “fluid Motion’ were shot out of a cannon all weekend. Look for big things from this boat this year. Great job guys, second place!

As the wind and waves built in the final race on Sunday some boats dropped out and only through attrition does Team Sandbox move up into third place.

See all the results below.

Place # Boat Name Owner Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Race 5 Total
1 23 Trolleycar Peter Stazicker 2 1 1 1 2 7
2 100 Fluid Mocean Simms/Stauffer 3 4 6 2 3 18
3 303 Sandbox Mark Sands 9 2 5 5 4 25
4 307 All In Mike George 11dnf 11dns 2 3 1 28
5 9 Strange Crew Hathaway/Leeds/Cate 1 6 4 6 11dnf 28
6 305 305 Barbara Duker 4 3 3 9 11dns 30
7 97228 Velerito Karyn Jones 7 8 7 7 5 34
8 207 Zip Jim Durden 5 5 11dns 4 11dnf 36
9 97264 Off The Wagon Richard Mainland 6 7 9 8 11dns 41
10 69053 Shirley & Earle Revah/Chamberlin 8 9 8 11dnf 11dns 47