Greg:

Joe, Susan, Mike, and Greg came from up North; Jamey, Doug and Garth came from down South; Lewis, Jerry and Jackie can out from the home club. They all were looking to compete for the Joel Van Sant Bug trophy. The racing was scheduled to start Saturday at 1:00 pm off the club fronting the Battery seawall. As the wind piped up to 12-15 and the ebbing tide caused a washing machine wave action, soon after launching Susan and Jerry quickly decided to come back in and observe the action from the safety of the club balcony. After just a few minutes, even before the first start, Jamey's tiller decided to not stay together so he, too, was sidelined attempting repairs (he jumped into Susan's Aftermath for the second race and took a fourth before her rudder cracked in half.) Doug missed the first start also fixing a rudder problem. Greg sailed a couple of races, taking a pair of fifths, before deciding to join Susan and Jerry on the balcony in order to save his knee for the Nationals. Everyone else sailed four races back-to-back with Joe taking 4 bullets, Garth taking three 2nds and a 3rd, and Lewis, Jackie and Mike finding themselves in a heated battle for third, with only one point separating the three skippers.

With the Saturday party at the boathouse, and Lewis regaling the visitors of tales of driving gas tanker trucks over the 1929 Cooper River Bridge as a teen-ager, the CYC experienced a mini-blackout as the Charleston downtown district lost power for over an hour. It's a good thing the beer was already iced down!

For Sunday's races the wind again was in the 12 knot range and the ebb current was again a factor (the weather mark was set across the Ashley River current line causing decided differences in sides of the beat.) Jamey fixed his rudder problems and sailed "Bad Hare Day" to a couple of seconds. Joe again took two firsts, completing a perfect sweep. Mike gutted out a pair of fourths, and dropping his 6th from the day before, and emerged ahead of Lewis and Jackie. At the end of the regatta the finishes were: Joe in first place sailing Try-Umph, claiming the Van Sant trophy for a third time after a two year gap, Garth is second sailing a Rodgers wedge, and Mike in third in his Mistral (winning his first Moth silverware!) Lewis finished fourth overall and won the Masters division in a Shelley and Jerry Carter was awarded the Captain Swan trophy for significant contributions to the Charleston moth fleet.

My observation on the mistral/wedge question was that when sailed in the same in the same wind and water the mistral was faster upwind and the wedge was faster downwind. That being said, Jamey and I both agree that the regatta was decided on more basic factors such as picking shifts, playing the current, proficient boat handling, and the ever-present breakdown problem or lack thereof.

Everyone looked forward to meeting again in Elizabeth City for the Nationals in four weeks.