Oriental Sailing Social

July 10-11, 2004

by John Pelosi

The fifth district SELD regatta was held at Oriental and sponsored by the Carolina Sailing Club on July 10-11.  John Pelosi with Harold Broadwell and Tina Tenret as crew became the fourth different team to win a regatta this year. 

Six district Lightnings competed with each other among a field of 44 boats.  Lightnings started with the fleet of four Thistles, which made for some frustrating tactical situations as both fleets tried to stay out of each others way, but needed to play the shifts the same way.  One example was that, after taking a bullet in the first race by outmaneuvering Pelosi at the leeward mark, John Sawyer’s team had to take dirty air from three different Thistles at the start of the second race and wasn’t able to recover.

Wind velocity was pretty consistent at around five to ten knots with the exception of a marked wind shift in both velocity and direction in the second race with wind speed increasing to about 14, providing an almost screaming reach to the leeward mark.  Avis Bridgers' team took advantage of a left shift at the weather mark to round well ahead of the fleet to finish first.  Pelosi woke up from the first race to catch Richard Waldkirch napping on the reach to leeward and rolled him to take second.

A thunderstorm took precedence over a third race on Saturday, so we all went ashore for a great social provided by Pat and Alan Backus of CSC.  It was so good that we never ran out of shrimp and other tasty goodies.

Sunday morning brought us remarkably good breezes and the race committee gave us two more good races.  In the first race, Pelosi finally got his act together and got far enough ahead of the fleet so that whatever mistakes he made didn’t matter.  Team Bridgers took second with Team Waldkirch at a consistent third.  Team Sawyer got tangled up with the other fleets again.  Saying enough is enough, John's team set up at the port end, pulled off a slick port start, and never looked back to take the final bullet and second place in the regatta.  Pelosi covered Bridgers to assure first place overall, ruining Waldkirch’s consistent third places by finishing with a second.

Though he never scored above fifth place, Bob Graves sailed some great legs and showed both good speed and tactical good sense.  Harry Cline, sailing with a brand new crew, showed the same, but was hindered on Sunday by having only one crew so couldn’t fly spinnaker.  We hope to see these teams in future district regattas.  We also hope to see more district boats at Oriental in the future.  It’s a great venue and a great regatta!

Finally, while certainly not official, rumors abound that this was the first time Avis Bridgers finished in the trophies.   CONGRATULATIONS AVIS. 

Race                 1          2          3          4          Total

Pelosi               2          2          1          3          8

Sawyer             1          4          4          1          10

Bridgers            4          1          2          4          11

Waldkirch          3          3          3          2          11

Graves              5          5          5          5          20

Cline                 DNS     6          6          6          25