Leukemia Cup/President’s Cup: 2001
September 8-9 (Results)

by

Jon Guth
14548
Lightning Fleet 329
Annapolis, MD

This year’s version of the National Capital Area Leukemia Cup and President’s Cup was by far the most fun for us out of any of the four years we’ve been doing this event.  And not just because we ended up winning, although that certainly helped.  We had the best weather and sailing conditions that I can recall with sunny skies, temperatures in the low-mid 80’s, a nice southerly breeze, and high-tides most of both days.  Furthermore, the hydrilla-factor was much less important this year than it was for the last few years.  Normally there’s no avoiding it when there’s a light-moderate Southerly since you have to sail across the main patch of it in order to get over to the heavily-favored right side near the Airport sea-wall.  To escape its grasp you have to constantly raise your board.

This was also one of the most well attended Leukemia/President’s Cup in recent memory with 21 boats. Several came from Annapolis, several from Solomon’s and of course the majority of boats were from the fast-growing DC fleet.

Most of the credit for us winning this year should go to my crew.  This year, as in the last four, I had Peter Rich in the middle calling tactics and trimming the chute, with whom I’ve been sailing for five years on his J-24 and on my Lightning.  Peter is a great sailor from whom I’ve learned a lot and I always have full confidence in him to make the right calls.  Jen Millar was in the front and did another superb job just as she did when we sailed together at this year’s NA’s.  Peter and I have finished something like 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th in this event over the last three years so it was nice to finally pull it off.

As far as the races, on Saturday we headed out in a building Southerly and just before the first race saw the breeze out of 185 at about 8-10 knots.  We were thinking about heading left into what we thought was more pressure, started near the middle of the line with an I-flag up right off the bat, and came dangerously close to being over early.  There was some real uncertainty on the boat when the Ind. Recall flag remained up even after Jamie Brickell went back, but I was pretty certain we were well hidden under Carl Muska and a bunch of others so we kept sailing.  The puffs and lifts on the left worked out pretty well (one of the few times all weekend), and I think we rounded second or third, dropped down low out of the rounding as the chute filled and made immediate gains on the 1 or 2 in front of us.  After getting in front, I believe we covered the rest of the way around and as we approached what we thought was the finish, Peter noticed another mark on the other side of the RC boat. After some frantic discussion and quickly checking the SI’s we headed up, crossed the actual finish line, held our breath and received a gun, confirming that we were not OCS.  A nice start to the regatta.  Jamie with Team Brickell had come back like gangbusters from being over early to finish third behind Carl Muska (who was unfortunately scored OCS).

The next race we figured we’d go with what worked but this time started further down the line a bit.  After a decent start we headed left again and began to realize that the pressure was dropping.  Our first attempt to get back across the middle was looking bleak and after a hitch or two back out trying to seek the old breeze, we rounded the weather mark about mid-fleet.  As the breeze had shifted right 15 or so degrees on the way uphill, we did a quick jibe and immediately gained on a pack of boats that were bunched up and blanketing each other down the other side.  We continued to focus, managed to get inside position at the left gate on a couple boats and eventually ground our way back to third, closely covering a couple boats up the favored right side. Team Brickell won the race easily by immediately getting over to the right and Frank Gallagher was second. 

After two W-L 4 leg courses, the last race of Saturday was a W-L 5 legger with an upwind finish.  We now realized that the right side along the Airport sea wall seemed to be paying so we planned to start near the boat to be able to tack quickly.  I managed to work us into a good spot on the line and we got off cleanly at the boat. We tacked off and got over to the right first and mostly short-tacked up the sea wall, rounding right on Carl Muska’s transom, who must have found some nice puffs in the left-middle.  We had a good set and sailed low, gybed on a little lift and got to the leeward mark just ahead of Carl. On the final beat to the finish, Carl closed the distance on us and engaged us in a tacking dual to try to get leverage to the right.  We covered him tightly never letting him get much to the right of us and held on to win.  Great job by Carl though who kept coming after us and made us work hard for the bullet in that race.

The National Area Leukemia Cup Regatta (Saturday-only) was, as always, a huge success in raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Societies and many nice awards were given to the top fundraising boats (There was also a bigger-boat regatta going on down river).  Lots of good live music, steamed mussels, one-dollar beers, and a big silent auction on the banks of the Potomac were the highlights of that evening’s big party.  As a side note, they also gave the regatta winners some nice trophies and we were proud to be a part of the whole affair. 

Sunday brought overcast skies and lighter winds but a good forecast for late morning/early afternoon. The RC did a great job to get us in three more races, one Olympic, a short, triangle once around, and a final longer triangle with an upwind finish.  The formula of starting near the boat and heading right seemed to be the thing to do in the 5-7 knot south-southwesterly breeze so we mostly played that out successfully with the exception of the last race where I got us buried down the line a bit and we had to fight our way back through the fleet.  With the throw out coming after the sixth race, we were mainly trying to not foul anyone and get around the course cleanly.

I’d like to thank Lightning Fleet 50, PRSA, and Washington Sailing Marina for running a great event, and my crew of Peter Rich and Jen Millar for getting us around the course and stellar boat handling.  We’ll be there again next year to return the Norman Schaller Trophy, which they discovered we actually won after mistakenly awarding it to the winner of another fleet.  We appreciate the correction.  I keep coming back to this regatta not only because it supports such a great cause, but also for the very interesting and different sailing conditions we encounter on the tidal Potomac River.  I highly recommend it!