District 11 News
D11 Sailors Active throughout North America
July 5th, 2007
District 11 sailor have participated in a number of regattas throughout North America already this year. Recently Bo McClatchy, David Schoene and Todd Hiller among others traveled to the Buffalo Canoe club for the Canadian National Championships. Other D11 sailors have been sailing in Masters events in North Carolina and regattas in the New England area. A couple of D11 sailors are even headed to the Masters Worlds in Spain.
Where have you been racing this summer? Where are you planning on racing outside of D11 this year?
Here are some details of the Canadian Championships from Todd Hiller:
Got back from the Canadians and what a great and well run event! Conditions were awesome, but tricky. The whole local knowledge was thrown completely out the window, especially on the last day. Just look at my scores. There were over 120 registered and was pretty much split down the middle 60/60 in each class. The chaos on the water made for some interesting spectator viewing.
On Thursday I had the opportunity to go out and practice for a little bit with Emery Wagner (reigning Collegiate Single-handed Champion) and John Pearce in the big waves of Lake Erie. And I mean big. The waves were anywhere from 8-10 feet and along with that was a fresh breeze of about 18-22kts. Good stuff.
Friday - [3 races]: Just to give you an idea of how things go up there, registration was from 8-10 and the first race was at 12:00! Jody Swanson was running our races for the first day of the event. She rallied off three successful races in the 25-30kt NNE breeze. Puffs were recorded at over 35 knots at times. The breeze later backed around to the SW and dropped to a comfortable 15-20kts.
Saturday - [4 races]: The day started a little earlier, 10:00 am and Dave Starck also managed to squeeze in four quality races. The breeze was steady 13-18kts from the SW and in the last race those infamous waves were starting to build.
Sunday - [2 races]: I got out early to get into the mode. Legs somewhat sore from Friday, but after a few tacks and jibes things got loose. Then, just before the first race, I was going upwind with Evan Lewis (CAN), great guy and as I tacked over onto port, I sat on my hiking stick (carbon) and cracked it. I got it taped up pretty quick, but that sort of threw a whole new variable I wasn't prepared for and my head was all awry and couldn't sail out of a wet paper bag full of holes. The thing finally just exploded in the middle of the last race of the series and I had to finish my last race PHRF style.
Not pretty. The breeze was light (6kts SW) and sort of lumpy with all of the powerboat traffic.
Posted July 5th, 2007 by Jon Deutsch