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2001 RACING REPORTS (Top 7 Finishers): |
Cherry Blossom 2001 April 28th
Finishing the Cherry Blossom this year proved a challenge. We arrived early and unloaded the boats while waiting for the paddleboat concession people to unlock the gates to the floating docks. We were occasionally showered with cherry blossom petals as puffs of wind found their way over the hill from the Washington Monument direction. Jim & Ellie Ayres handled the registration while race committee officers, Jane Taliaferro and Sue Schneider set a windward triangle course. In the first race, Bill Fry caught a lift by himself on the left side of the course, rounded the weather mark in first and held his lead to the finish.
During the countdown to the second race, a strong puff hit the start line, rounding up several boats and Bill Fry capsized right beside the inflatable committee boat. The starting line being partly blocked, Bill having trouble getting his boat up, and the water being very cold, the race committee elected to abandon the start and tried to help Bill rescue his boat. Unfortunately, his boat turned out to have self-rescue ability in the negative numbers and they were not able to bail it out, so they got Bill out of the water and towed his partially submerged boat slowly back to the dock where he could empty it out. While waiting for this, most of the older fleet members also came back to the dock where they apprehensively watched Geoff Schneider catch some of the building puffs, hiking at a full stretch off the stern quarter of his boat with his head practically in the water, and planing off with an impressive rooster tail behind him. Following the rescue break, the second race was restarted and Geoff got a good start at the pin end and kept the lead for the entire race. Bill Fry edged out Hank Muma for second. Cal Rogers broke his rudder in a puff right after the start and, while trying to fix it, drifted down to the Jefferson Memorial steps where he sat out the following races.
Conditions became even more challenging for the final race. Heavier puffs were boiling down the course. Geoff again won the start with Bill and Hank behind him. Bill passed Hank on the second reach. Bill would have won the regatta if he had held his second place to the finish because Geoff had a fourth in the first race, but, halfway up the final weather leg, Bill’s tiller broke for a DNF!
Final top seven were Geoff Schneider 1st, Hank Muma 2nd, Brian Taliaferro 3rd, Tom Jones 4th, Bill Fry 5th, Chisolm McAvoy 6th, and Cal Rogers 7th. One of the interesting happenings in this regatta was that President Bush’s Helicopter passed low overhead on three separate occasions. At first, we thought that he just wanted a better view of the regatta, but, towards the end, Chisolm McAvoy found a baseball cap in the water with an American Flag on the front of it. We think that George W. lost his hat out the window while watching the first race and had the helicopter come back twice to see if he could find it. If you hear that George W. is still looking for his hat, Carol Jones has it now and he’ll have to go to Tuckahoe, New Jersey, to get it back.
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Tuckahoe Spring Regatta, June 9th, 2001
This was the second challenging race this year! Tom Jones set a short course off his docks. There were strong gusts of wind with major shifts on the river, and, toward the end of the regatta, the current was significantly building. The fleet suffered two broken masts and two capsizes requiring rescues from the island. Tom completed six races and there were four different race winners, Geoff, Bill, Hank, and Brian. The top seven overall were: 1. Geoff Schneider, 2. Hank Muma, 3. Brian Taliaferro, 4. Bill Schneider, 5. Read Rogers, 6. Fran Read, and 7. Carol Jones.
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Tred Avon Regatta, June 24th, 2001
Another fine weather day, but still yet challenging (third in a row)! As we arrived in Oxford, the winds were up - much more than the predicted 10 knots or less out of the north. Whitecaps and rollers were piling up on the club bulkheads, giving us a bit of pause. After considerable discussions, and the appearance of some moderating in the windspeed, we finally decided to give it a try. This time we only had one broken mast! Tred Avon ran a great regatta - they put us on the Optimist course, starting second so we wouldn't be embarrased if an Optimist passed us. Bill Schneider was so concerned about the wind strength, he raked his mast well back. It turned out to be the ideal combination, allowing him to outpoint the others. He and Geoff generally alternated winning the races so it came down to the last race which Bill won and Geoff squeaked in a very close second at opposite ends of the finish line. Angela Garcia, former Opti star, Florida State college sailor, and coach of the CBYRA Opti team, borrowed a spare boat and did very well for the first time in an El toro. However, it took her a few races to get up the learning curve which kept her out of the money. Hope to see her in the boat again. Results (top 6): 1. Bill Schneider, 2. Geoff Schneider, 3. Hank Muma, 4. Angela Garcia, 5. Brian Taliaferro, 6. Tom Jones.
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Cambridge Annual Regatta, July 14-15th, 2001 (MidAtlantic Championships)
We have not been lacking for wind this year! On Saturday, we were seeing 20 knots of wind or more, sending waves onto the docks. Most of us wimped out (i.e. showed a reasonable sense of precaution), but Geoff, Brian and the two New York representatives, Jerry Sacknoff and Pearce Baker, decided to give it a try. Brian promptly broke his rudder and Pearce turned his toro into a submarine and found out his tanks leaked. The rescue boat towed him back in, but it took a long time to drain the water from his boat. The winds moderated the next day and we all went out and had a great time. Results: will be posted when Cambridge Yacht Club adds them to their web site.
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Plantation Regatta, August 11th, 2001
The regatta was held at the Fry's summer mansion (at least, for a summer place, it sure looked like a mansion to me) on St Inigoes Creek off just south of St Mary's College in Southern Maryland. The Schneiders and the Taliaferro's had spent the previous week cruising (not in the toros, in their 35 - 38 ft sailboats) in the local area on the Potomac in record heat (and lack of breeze) and anchored off the Fry estate. Fortunately, a front came through bringing a good breeze for the regatta. Cal Rogers showed the benefit of local knowledge (or maybe he was just plain fast that day) and edged Geoff Schneider with 2 bullets and 2 seconds plus his throwout. The regatta timing was excellent, because during the awards ceremony on the porch by the pool, it started to pour and the wind began to howl (we moved Nightingale and Freeflight around the corner to a more protected cove for the night) The top seven overall were: 1. Cal Rogers, 2. Geoff Schneider, 3. Bill Schneider, 4. Hank Muma, 5. Chisolm McAvoy, 6. Bill Fry, and 7. Val Taliaferro.
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Leukemia Cup Regatta, September 8th, 2001
We had a great Leukemia Cup this year at the Washington Sailing Marina at the Washington Sailing Marina (two days before the plane hit the nearby Pentagon). There was a high tide which gave us a larger area free of Hydrilla. The winds were challenging, with gusts and wind shifts as much as 45 degrees. However the race committee set a good course for us in the basin (the other boats raced out in the Potomac). Geoff had 4 bullets, but Bill and Val actually managed to beat him in the last race of the day(last year I distracted him into a patch of hydrilla, this year it took a wind shift). The top seven overall were: 1. Geoff Schneider, 2. Bill Schneider, 3. Brian Taliaferro, 4. Val Taliaferro, 5. Hank Muma, 6. Chisolm McAvoy, and 7. Tom Jones.
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Tuckahoe Downriver Regatta, September 22nd, 2001
Tom Jones recruited his son, Jeff to run the race committee and the neighbors to be chase boat, so both he and Carol could sail. The race was timed so we would sail up the Tuckahoe on the last of the rising tide and return on the ebb. This was fortunate because we had quite variable wind and would have been going backwards in the lulls otherwise. The lead and overall order of the boats changed often, although Geoff was in the lead most of the regatta. Tom Jones exhibited his local knowledge partway up the river and passed Bill and Brian on the outside of a bend when the others were blanketed by the tall grass. He held onto second until almost the weather mark. Carol Jones tried to pick up a few places by taking the starboard channel around an island, but fell into a vaccum and vanished from sight behind (we thought she had just stopped for a cigarette). Geoff held onto the lead until just before the finish line came into sight when Bill, taking a page from Tom's book, took the outside line around the final bend, found more air and passed him. Val showed his best boat speed all year and pulled into a clear third (he was in second for a long time). The top seven overall were: 1. Bill Schneider, 2. Geoff Schneider, 3. Val Taliaferro, 4. Hank Muma, 5. Tom Jones, 6. Brian Taliaferro, and 7. Chisolm McAvoy.
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