Frostbite Regatta

  • Saturday, November 2nd, 2002
  • Miles River YC
  • St. Michael's, MD

Miles River YC in St. Michaels, MD just hosted their second Annual Frostbite regatta for Lasers. Last year a bunch of boats from Annapolis were the only participants, but we all had a great time. Word must have spread over to the Eastern Shore because I'm told that a bunch of locals were out racing this year. That's great news!

Ali Meller (SSA) gets to hold on to his MRYC Frostbite crown for yet another year. He and Mike Albert (SSA and Med School) duked it out. Ali provided the following write-up:

"Once again Mike Keane at MRYC invited the SSA Laser fleet to participate in the MRYC frostbite regatta. Unlike last year, it was sunny, and relatively warm. We still had to hike hard at times, but conditions were a little more relaxed than last year. So much so that the Penguins raced whereas they never rigged last year.

After everyone sat on the fence and waited to decide if they were going to the event, forcing Mike to e-mail a number of us to ask, we ended up with 4 of the 7 Laser competitors being from SSA. It was great to see some MRYC locals racing this year.

I was going to write a race by race, tack by tack, blow by blow description, but I just don't have the energy (and my memory of each race is quickly fading). It was a nice sunny day with some great puffs, and some large [huge in some cases] lulls. Places changed around around the course, particularly on the last (half) beats to the finish. A series of Hail Mary lefties-in-puffs allowed Alexander Meller to come from behind and pass Mike Albert on the last beat in three of the four races, winning two of those, and finishing second to a local in the other. He led another race all the other way around to the finish, while Albert had to fight his way through the fleet after hitting the start mark and doing a penalty turn. Three firsts and a second gave Alexander Meller the win. A fast, smart, agressive, but sometimes-too-far-right-on-the-last-beat Mike Albert was second overall, with three seconds and a third. Luke Shingledecker was third. The locals had a great time, too, with this event marking their return to Laser racing after many years for two of them.

Actually, everyone who showed up won (which means all you guys who didn't are the losers (we can think of stronger worlds to describe those of you who decided to sleep in, cut the grass, trim your toenails or whatever excuses you had....idiots)). It was a great day for Laser racing, MRYC did a fine job of running the event, the hot soup and food in the bar after racing was great, and it was an easy drive to and from SSA. It really doesn't get much better than that. And I even had one of the RC members buy me a drink at the bar, as I had helped unwrap and anchor line from his propeller shaft.

Alexander Meller

Added: 11/02/2002 12:22:58 by Jon Deutsch
Updated: 7/02/2005 12:22:58 by Jon Deutsch