Report of 2004 Atlantic Coast Championships
Toms River NJ
July 24 - 25 2004

by Nabeel Alsalam

Russ Roberts, Lisbet Kugler, and I took Shadowfax up to Tom’s River, New Jersey to compete in the Atlantic Coast Championships this past weekend.    We only managed a 25^th out of 52 boats but we had a great time.  The yacht club was very hospitable to us.  The RC (and mother nature) gave us 5 great races.   We saw lots of our Lightning friends, (but, unfortunately, none of our fleet 50 friends).  

 It was a windy weekend.  It blew 10 to 15 from the NE with gusts up into the upper teens on Saturday.  The big challenge for us was getting a good start on a 1000-foot starting line with 52 Lightnings piling up onto it.  It wasn’t easy and if you didn’t get it right, it was tough to recover.  Still, we managed a 19 in race 1, but didn’t do better for the rest of the weekend.    Also, getting good upwind speed was a challenge for me.  It was puffy, especially on the left side nearer the shore.  On the right side the waves were larger.   Choose your poison.  I was working the mainsheet constantly to keep the boat from healing and pinching up, but I definitely need more practice in those conditions.

Downwind was fun.  I especially remember catching a wave and deciding to harden up slightly to ride it as long as possible, like a surfer would.  We seemed to stay with it for 20 or 30 seconds, an eternity when planning along at those speeds.  I think we passed boats, but who knows with so many around you. 

A windy day creates close calls and we had our share of them.  One was when Lisbet missed her hiking strap during a tack.  She was in the middle of doing a reverse summersault off the boat but stopped herself by holding onto the jib sheet for dear life.  Russ grabbed her feet, which was all that was left on the deck.  I grabbed her life jacket (lucky she had it on) and pulled her in.  Off we went again without loosing a boat.

 Like I said earlier, the club was very hospitable.  They packed nice lunches for us to eat on the water.  Once back on land, we polished off a keg and then had a buffet and sit down dinner in their huge second floor dining room and watched videotape coverage of ourselves on the huge big screen TV.   When we finally head for our beds, our bodies had that beat up feeling like you have after a hard workout. 

 On Sunday, it blew even harder, probably 15 to 20 from the NE with gusts into the low 20s.   Some people decided it was too much, so we didn’t have the full complement of 52 boats, but I couldn’t tell from the spots I chose on the starting line.  With less than a minute to go were had a nice spot on the line but the sails where flapping so hard that it hurt my ears and I could feel the dollars I spent on those new sails going ching ching into the angry wind.   As the time for the gun approach and I tried to accelerate but the boat moved off like I was dragging a crab pot and I found myself behind a wall of sails throwing disturbed air at me.  No options to tack and clear my air for a good while so I had to just grit my teeth and keep going.  

 To add insult to injury about two-thirds of the way up that leg, I suddenly found myself holding the golf grip to my tiller extension all by itself—it had slipped off.  The boat rounded up, Russ fell off the high side but hung onto the centerboard as Lisbet and I managed to save ourselves from a complete capsize.  With the boat full of water, we reached off to try and empty it, but we are now in dead last place.  Lucky for us, one boat capsized upwind and another 4 capsized on that first downwind leg.  Although several recovered we did managed to keep them behind us.

Allen Terhune won the regatta.  I was flabbergasted when he called his crew up to share in the spotlight.  Although Allen seems to be powerfully built, his wife is quite thin and his third was a flagpole no heavier than 80 lbs.  I can’t imagine how they handled those 15-25 knot breezes and kept a lot of very good sailors behind them.  They obviously know what they are doing.

The Tom’s River dumps into Barnegat Bay just south of the bridge that goes over to Seaside Heights.  We sailed at the mouth of the river, which is about a 1.5 by 1.5 square mile area.   This is a great sailing area not that different from the Rehoboth Bay.  If you every have a chance to go sail there, do it!   

 Next year, the ACCs are in the Dixie District.  Jon Guth, who sailed very very well, was the best Dixie District finisher with a 13^th place which gives him the honor of organizing it.  Speaking of Dixie sailors, Todd Johnson had a great Sunday with a 9 and a 12, which catapulted him from 35^th after Saturday’s racing to 17th at the end.  Steve Constants was 16^th.