Scorekeeper: Jeff Stork
3 May, '10, 20:39
St. Pete Scorer

Race Committee:
Bruce Bingman, PRO
Jeff Storck
Bruce Heida
Becky Mach
John Butler
Cathy Bleakly
Joe Warren
Andrea Caroe
john Hart
Denise Pavone-Brooks
Mike Heinsdorf
Frank Hine
Taran Teague

What a fantastic pair of back-to-back race days on the Potomac, with good competition and great weather.  We had southwesterly breezes at around 10 MPH on Saturday, and southerly breezes at around 12 MPH on Sunday, under mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-80s -- and NO RAIN!  Congratulations to Ed Adams, from the Ida Lewis YC in Newport RI, our regatta winner, and to John Faus from Barnegat Light YC in New Jersey, a very close runner-up. 

We enjoyed sailing with the 9 flying Scots (scores posted separately) on the race course and the gourmet dinner Saturday night.

David Thompson
Chair, Regatta Organizing Committee

     
                                      Winds Saturday                                                             Winds Sunday

 This year, in addition to the 25 Lightnings on hand, we had 9 Flying Scots join us for two days of great racing. Saturday was mostly clear with breezes from the SSW at 6-12kts, and on Sunday we got 10-15 under mostly cloudy skies. The conditions were just plain ideal for some really tight racing at times. The Lightning class was won by Ed Adams in a tight match with John Faus. I have to point out, however, that young Justin Copan really dominated the weekend with 4 bullets and a third. Why didn't he win? Unfortunately for him, one of those bullets turned into a 26 as he was OCS. DOH!! Other than that faux pas, he really put on a clinic for us. On the Flying Scot side, David Neff won the top honors with 3 bullets and 2 deuces. Another dominant performance. As usual, Fleet 50 put on an excellent regatta, with some great RC work headed up by Bruce Bingman. Of course the awesome weather didn't hurt either!

Jeff Storck
Chair, Race Committee Selection Committee 

Winners perspective, by Ed Adams:

Some highlights from the 2010 Potomac Cup/Doc Gilbert Memorial Regatta.

•     A tight, twenty-five-boat regatta, with only two points separating the top three;

•     A surprise winner, only after learning that Dick Hallagan was OCS in the final race, saving us an extra point in the final tally. A disappointed John Faus and crew, who sailed a great regatta;

•     But the real “winner” was Justin Coplan, a product of the ILCA Boat Grant Program, now with his own boat and a very young crew. Justin won the first four races and was leading the last race—until we finally got around him. If it wasn’t for an OCS in Race 1, he would have run away with the event. Kudos to this burgeoning young talent!

•     Near perfect weather—sunny and warm both days. 5–12 knot southerly on Saturday and 8–14 on Sunday;

•     Crack RC, headed by Bruce Bingman of Annapolis, who ran five great races, on time, and got us back on the road to beat the Sunday evening traffic;

•     Easy logistics: noontime start on Saturday. A short sail to the starting line, lots of space for rigging, camping, hoisting and docking. For those not camping, WyteStone Suites had three-person rooms for $120 a short drive away;

•     Plenty of free (my favorite price) beer, courtesy of sponsor Michelob, with a nice, family-style barbeque.

I drove down on Friday with new crew Pete Largess, a tree surgeon and Laser sailor from Newport. Pete is a competitive tree climber and has a bit of Lightning experience as well (3rd in the Sears Cup). Super enthusiastic. Always happy.

We met up with Nancy Haberland Heffernan, our third, in Annapolis on Friday evening. I sailed Snipes with Nancy many years ago and had lost track of her when she remarried. But I saw in Scuttlebutt that she had just won the Sunfish Masters Championship and decided to look her up. Nancy represented the US in the Athens Olympics in the Yngling and is one of the toughest competitors, male or female, I have ever known.

The venue, Leesylvania State Park, is beautiful, logistically easy, and a real tactical challenge. The current is strong on the Potomac River, especially the ebb. The typical summer gradient southwest wind lines up nicely with the axis of the river, but it also competes with the southerly Chesapeake Bay sea breeze. This tends to turn the southwest morning wind into a south wind in the early afternoon, relaxing back to southwest in the late afternoon.

On Saturday, this left trend and a building ebb, flowing upwind, favored the left side upwind until late in the afternoon and made the runs really difficult. On Sunday,  the southwest gradient was stronger and held the sea breeze out. Combined with an earlier start and weaker current, this made the right generally favored upwind.

 We had good starts and great upwind speed but struggled on the runs in the lighter races. Thankfully, we only had one downwind finish, or we would have had a lot more points. The problem was simple. The long jibe was often against the worst current. If you jibed early to get out of the current, that was OK. If you went straight on the long jibe against the current, but with clear air, that was OK. If, like me, you muddled in the middle with no clear strategy, you got creamed!

To add to my misery, I have yet to learn what the correct angle is in the Lightning in light air. As Bill Shore has tried to teach me, you either have to sail hot to get to the new wind, or you have to push as low as possible for maximum VMG. If you waffle in between, you lose.

Nancy had little patience for my incompetence. She would continually call out the angle that “made the most trees” on the competition, and then I would drift higher to make the kite fly easier. She would bark, “You’re too high! I told you not to come up. If you won’t sail the angle I call, I’m getting off now!” Man, is she tough or what?

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Reprinted from the May 2010 issue ofthe ILCA Lightning Flashes