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2005 Regatta Results

AMYA National Championship
AMYA Region 2 Championship
AMYA Region 3 Championship
AMYA Region 4 Championship
AMYA Region 5 Championship
CMYC Frostbite
Florida State Championship
White Rock Cup
Detroit Penguin
Ashburn Pumpkin
Sailmakers Cup
Alamo Classic
Canadian National Championships
Put in Bay Classic
Round the Rocks Regatta
Twin Lakes Annual

National Championships

 Toronto Canada August 11,12 & 13 2005

It started off with a weight in and measurement on Friday night followed by practice at the site. We had a club BBQ so skippers could join the members or take in the local sights.

Saturday morning was grey and overcast with light winds from the south east. We had a heat systems were the first heat was to place skippers into the red, white and blue fleets. Each fleet had 12,12,13 skippers. The morning saw slow races with more weeds than I have ever seen at this site. With all the warm weather it made for a tough time. All skippers seem to get weeds. Tom Causin from Virginia USA even designed a weed cutter for the bow of his boat! 

Lunch was provided and further racing in the afternoon with some showers and very light winds.  By the end of the first day Peter Siek frorm Ohio,  Craig Mackey from Washington and Ray Dagenais from Detroit were the leading skippers. The evening followed with a cook your own steak, potato, corn on the cob and home made carrot cake made by one of our 12 year olds yum yum... We provide a live band and dancing till midnight. I think we had Craig kicking up his heels till then!

On Sunday morning to volunteers cooked a home make breakfast with Canadian back bacon. Finally some winds were up and then down with a continual weed problem. Racing resumed till the committee called the match at 1330 hours. I was sad to see the event close but Mother Nature did not come out with the necessary winds.

The awards followed with prizes going to everyone. One of our members made the trophies out of stain glass mounted on slate from around our yacht club.

All in all I feel that everyone had a good time and I know I will always remember this weekend.

Thanks to all the skippers who took time out to attend and made this a very special weekend.

 Judy Preston , Regatta Chair

Region 2 Championships

Cambridge MD, August 28th, 2005

Region 3 Championships

Region 4 Championship

See the Penguin Regatta for the write up

Region 5 Championship

Region 6 Championship

CMYC Frostbite

Florida State Championship

VICTORIA CLASS FLORIDA STATE CHAMPIONSHIP REGATTA IS NOW IN THE HISTORY BOOK.

   Saturday, Feb 26, 2005 was a historical day for the Victoria Class here in the state of Florida, because the Inaugural Victoria Class Florida Championship Regatta was held on Lake Catherine in Palm Beach Garden, Florida. Hosted by the Palm Beach Garden Model Yacht Squadron, AMYA #94.

   The following sailors raced in this first ever regatta:

Doug Bowe, Palm Beach Gardens, Fl.
John Tiano, Palm City, Fl.
Robert Bull, Jensen Beach, Fl.
Brownie Dickey, Palm Beach, Fl.
Carroll Buress, Delray Beach, Fl.
James Coker, Mico, Fl.
Edward Gelina, Palm Beach Gardens, Fl.
George Emmert, Vero Beach, Fl.
David DeGaust, Port St. Lucie, Fl.
Bob Johns, Jensen Beach, Fl.
Dick Reinke, Tequesta, Fl.

   What a wonderful day out on Lake Catherine! What with the weather forecast the day before not being very good and a very foggy and wet morning, we had nice winds of 3 to 8 miles per hour. Jerry Gould , our race director, keep us busy with lots of good long courses and good course changes as needed. The cream of the crop of the Victoria sailors were very apparent before the lunch break as just one point separated first from second place.

The food committee really did a super job keeping us fed and happy. My houseguests for the week, Bob and Floss Shipley from Baltimore, Maryland, helped my wife Alma along with Ann Gelina in getting coffee, muffins, fruit, cookies, brownies, coffee, and fantastic Subway sandwiches. Bob was also instrumental in setting up the “five minute “ tents used to cover everything from the predicted rain. Victoria wives also provided more snacks of cookies, and a great pasta salad.

   Back out on the water after our lunch break, R/D Jerry Gould kept us racing until around 3:30 pm. We started racing at 9:30 AM, so needless to say we had a lot of sailing. A total of sixteen races were completed before the skies became threatening.

   As the Race Organizer for this event I am really proud of PBGMY for taking the lead in the first state regatta for the Victoria Class.

   To Robert Greer, what a pleasure it was when I asked at a board meeting about a perpetual trophy for this event and you said ‘I’ll do that”.  What a nice trophy! A half hull model of a Victoria mounted on a nice board with wording appropriate for this award, sponsored by PBGMYS. Our hope for this event is that other clubs in Florida will pick up the challenge and host it at locations around the state.

   This AMYA approved Green Chevron event should help build a following for this class in the state of Florida by developing a relationship amongst the various clubs who sail the Victoria

.Submitted by Dick Reinke, PBGMYS , AMYA #94

White Rock Cup, by Charles Sudduth & Chris Cafiero

The eighth White Rock Cup (WRC) was held on March 19 & 20. The temperature was in the 70’s with winds 5 – 10 mph from the northeast on Saturday and 5- 15 mph from the southeast on Sunday. On Friday afternoon practice the winds were much higher from the south forcing us to sail in a more sheltered area. Wind gusts were at least as high as 24 mph.

The WRC was a record setting regatta. There were 27 Victoria’s racing for the “Cup” and the participants donated a total of $1,041.25. Victoria sailors are without a doubt the best group of people. On Saturday morning $885 had been collected for the Spina Bifida Association of Dallas. Charles Sudduth challenged the participants to match his $5.00 in hopes of getting the total donation over $1,000.00. During the regatta another $156.25 was put into a Donation can putting the total donation over $1,000.00. I do not know of another AMYA regatta where all the registration fees go to a charity. The law firm of Carmody & James donated all the food and drink for the contestants. Thank you, Carmody & James.

The field of sailors was of the highest caliber. It was mentioned several times that this regatta could have been a National Championship. There were several new people putting their skills up against some of the nationally top ranked skippers. One interesting aspect of this year’s WRC was that all of the former winners of the “Cup” were competing against each other—A. J. Moritz, Scott Mauney, Craig Mackey, and John Kuc. Beside a large group of Victoria sailors from around Texas, there were skippers from Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana, Arizona, and Washington.

The Racing Director, Chris Cafiero, did a great job of keeping the racing moving. Eighteen races (36 heats) using the HMS Promotion-Relegation system were sailed in a day and a half (9 hours of racing time). The Les Lacs Yacht Club Addison donated keepsake trophies for the first three places. This report writer heard comments like “This is the best regatta ever!” many times during the regatta. If you have never sailed in the White Rock Cup regatta, then you have missed out on a great event. Go to the VictoriaYC website to view pictures.

Racing was very competitive. Craig Mackey sailed to 1^st place followed by John Kuc and A.J. Moritz—all three were former Cup winners.

Organizers and participants thank Corinthian Sailing Club for hosting this regatta. Corinthian Sailing Club provides a terrific venue that includes wonderful water space, control area, clubhouse, restroom facilities, and rescue boat.

Wind and water conditions were excellent for the small Victoria. Good courses were the order of the day with plenty of opportunity for clever sailing and tacking. The old problems of course setting and long reaches were absent. This led to exciting racing. Racing was also very clean and protests rare and quickly resolved with the appropriate turn.

While pushed more than in previous years, Craig Mackey (USA-18, Tabasco) won his third cup in four years, tying AJ Moritz for most wins.

The maturation of the Victoria fleet was quite evident in this regatta. The dissemination of building tips enhanced the level of construction. Several new boats were clearly at the level of top boats. The edge went to the better skipper and rig tuner, as befitting a One Design class.

The 2006 White Rock Cup IX will be held on March 18 & 19. Put this date on your calendar. See you next year!

Ray Seta (24) in control at the start at White Rock VIII. (Picture by: Tom Sudduth)

  Tight action at the windward mark at White Rock VIII. (Picture by: Charles Sudduth)

Mrs. Cafiero’s surprise at presentation of $1041.25 by Charles Sudduth at White Rock VIII. (Picture by: Steven Thompson)

Detroit Penguin

Well I have started writing this letter about the 2005 Penguin and Region 4 regattas about four times now and my mind keeps going back to the great summer I have had racing as a whole. I don’t think I had such a great summer in the 30 plus years that I have been racing. I race big boats on a J-120 with a great crew we have finished 2^nd overall in DRYA this year. Racing big boats is great but racing the Victoria is the best. Who could ask for more? A boat that will fit in any car and you go any were to any pond or lake. I know many people who have two or three boats in their car at one time. There are not many boats that you can do that with. This year alone I have raced my boat in multiple states and two countries. Look at this weekend we had 17 sailors from as far away as Toronto, Ohio and Florida. In two days we raced 34 races all were good windward / leeward courses and to top it off we had good air. You could never do that in a big boat let alone be able to walk talk and have fun with others while racing. It is also great for the non-racer we not only had our friends and family watching we had many people including the home owners around the pond sitting in their chairs watching us for hours. You know many people say that the Victoria is just a starter boat. But looking at the sailors like Peter Siek, Eric Petersen, and Eric Petersen Jr. who are top ranked sailors that came out for this weekend, the racing is nothing but top notch. We all learn from each other what to do to our boats, what works and what doesn’t work. For example on Saturday Jim Thompson did not have a great day on the pond (16^th) but he talked to other people looked at and took pictures of their boats. He then went home, and for very little to no money he made changes and came back on Sunday and finished 5^th. This class is great and the racing this weekend was spectacular, any time 17 boats can come together, race 18 races, and out of the 17 sailors 8 of them take a first it is hard to top. I find it hard to believe that anyone can top the racing and fun everyone had this weekend.

In any good regatta you need good help and this weekend we had the best. Cindy Ross, and Carl Bihlmeyer gave up their free time to help out as R.D., and let me tell you they did a great job. The courses were set up and everything ran on time all day. There are also so many little things that needed to be done to have a good regatta and so many people jumped in to help. Mark McCrindle, Jim Thompson helped out with lunch and tables. Eric Petersen was help before, during, and after. Even the boys from Toledo should be given credit for the wind.

Overall every thing went great and I think everyone had fun. I just want to say thanks to every one who made this weekend and this summer great! I’m looking forward to doing it all over again next year.

Kurt Hohn, DMYC Victoria, Fleet Captain

AMYC Pumpkin

Is this short course Racing????????

Sailmakers Cup

November 5 2005

                     Judy Preston presents John Scurr the Trophy

Canadian National Championships

This was regatta was run consecutively with the AMYA National Champs

Round the Rocks Regatta

Saturday August 21, 2005

Alamo Classic

The Innaugrial Alamo Classic Victoria Regatta: 

We at the Woodlawn Sailing Club can not tell you what a great feeling it is to have Victoria friends that not only want to come and race at Woodlawn but will step up and volunteer to help put the event on. We must be doing something right to have such great friends in the Victoria Class.   The following is a report filed by Barry Fox of the Clearpoint Model Sailing Club.   

After a lot of hype from the Pirates of Woodlawn, the weekend finally arrived to see if they could live up to their own press clippings.

In a word the answer is, yes.

Things looked a bit grim on Friday as the closer we got to San Antonio, the worse the weather got. We decided to stop about 40 miles this side of the city for a break before getting into town and going to the lake for practice. The cold front had come to Houston in the morning but was still very much shorts and T shirt temps so that is how I left town. However, the cold part stayed around San Antonio. We about froze to death when we got out of the car.

After a quick stop we went on to the lake for afternoon check-in and practice. First things first, lose the shorts and get the jeans on, and a sweater. 

After picking up the “booty” from Red (almost a) Beard, in the form of organizer Eric Gregory, it was down to the lake to see if the old Victoria would still float. Good news, it does.  We got in a good number of practice starts and 1 lap races to see that everything was in order. My boat was sailing quite well so I was feeling pretty good about my prospects of meeting my primary goal of not finishing last.

The Woodlawn folks looked to have done a great job of lining up raffle prizes as the prize table was loaded to overflowing and with a lot of very nice stuff too. 

Outside they had erected a nice big tent for the competitors pit area and naturally enough for this group there was a good supply of the beverages of your choice.  If you have never been to this facility before you need to go. A nice permanent clubhouse, a set of docks that easily gets you out to launch depth and a big floating barge for the race control area. And a little something extra for this event, some kind of floating lilies that were set on grabbing hold of your keel if you got too close.  

Practice ended and many of those who got there early went out for an evening of Mexican food and I am sure a few “beverages”. 

Saturday morning dawned a little cooler than has been normal for the last while but the skies had cleared completely and it looked to be a fine day for the event.

After a bit of morning practice the official festivities started up.  First came the welcome from none other than the spirit of Cap’n Jack Sparrow in the form a be-costumed Ray Seta accompanied by his trusty side kick (referred in this context as his “first mutt”) JK. 

Next, event organizer Eric Gregory laid out the ground rules for the overall event and introduced his capable team; Race Scorer Extraordinaire Nelda Tallman and Regatta Director John Oliveira. I will mention that a great number of other folks contributed to keeping the facility running all weekend, keeping two rescue boats on the lake all day, both days, supplying great lunches and breakfast and just generally helping it all running smoothly. 

John’s style being RD is easy to describe. He is in charge; he is direct and does his best to give everyone as many good races as possible. Throughout the weekend he routinely called course changes right up to the clock starting and seemed to call it right most every time.

The course consisted of a large number of markers spread all over the lake. And the starting line generally had three different options built into it so that allowed John a lot of options and he was excellent at choosing the right ones.

We had pretty decent winds all day. They died late in the afternoon but we had a good day of racing in by then and no-one really complained at calling the day because of the lack of wind when we actually got there.

This was another taste of the Odd/Even race format. I won’t explain it all here, it is actually quite simple, but it ends up that you will race with almost everyone at some point in the weekend. It also means that each heat is scored as its own race so there are a lot of close scores throughout the field.

There were a lot of good races throughout the day. Charles Sudduth is close in all the races but seems to excel in the light wind ones and runs away from everyone. Ron Stephanz was almost the same and seemed to have an edge in the higher wind races. Ray Seta and JK were just there all the time and consistently in the top five.

The rest of us? We had a great day with racing all the way through the fleet in each race.

I should mention that the Friday lilies were kept from the course all day thanks to the continuous and diligent work from the two rescue boats. There might have been the odd errant leaf but for the most part everyone was able to sail weed free.

Once we had our boats packed away for the night, the first round of raffle drawing took place at the Clubhouse. A lot of nice prizes were handed out and the Raffle Director kept it all pretty entertaining. 

Once the raffle was over it was time to eat. For this event, the members of Les Lacs Yacht Club from the Dallas area decided to host a Chili Cook-off. Each of them concocted their favorite blend and submitted it to a panel of “well qualified” chili connoisseurs in the form of Ron Stephanz (Alabama), Tom Kerns (New Jersey) and Bruce Pyles (Washington State). Once they had extracted their samples for judging everyone else descended on the tables and came away having eaten very well. There was a lot of very good food and chili temperatures were at all levels from mild to flaming hot. Certainly a great way to end a fine day of sailing.  (Click here to read Ron Stephanz’s report on the Alamo Classic Chili Cook-off.)

Sunday morning, read the above. A little shy on wind at first but after a very short delay it filled in nicely and gave us a great variety of wind conditions and directions and kept RD John on his toes to call the best course. It was the norm for the day to have a different windward mark on the second lap of the race just to keep the racing competitive.

As the day went by we had a couple of different winners but lurking right behind them were that same cast of players mentioned before. As is usually the case, some of us have occasional brilliance but the good sailors are just always there, race in and race out.

Other big pluses were the almost complete lack of contentious lake side bickering. In virtually every case folks took their penalties like they are supposed to or else rationalized it with the protester and everyone sailed on. No shore side protests, no BS last second moves, just a bunch of real good racing.

After the last race the raffle drawings continued, I said they had a lot of prizes, with everything from small parts through some very nice decorative items all the way up to full radio sets and a complete Victoria kit.

And then the awards.

The final results had a tie for first place between Charles Sudduth and Ron Stephanz with Ron getting the nod on most first place finishes, 8 to 5. Third place was a narrow one point victory for JK over his “best bud” Ray Seta. So the Black  Pearl was vanquished. 

A word about the trophies. Everyone got a very nice plaque that was hand-crafted by Bob Piper. They are very nicely done and worthy of a space on your wall or in your trophy case. As well Bob made up larger plaques for places 4^th through 10^th in the same style. Great work Bob!!! 

And the top three places each got a very nice trophy, again hand-crafted but this time by Ray Mireles with three parallel sets of sails made from some exotic wood. Very unique and very worthy of a place of honor on your trophy shelf. 

In addition the club made a large wall plaque that will be the perpetual trophy for this event. It feature a full length half-hull of a Victoria, surrounded by plaques that will be engraved with the winner’s names each year and hang on the clubhouse “wall of fame”. So Ron Stephanz has the honor of being the first to be engraved. 

Long winded but a long weekend of sailing. Congratulations to everyone who helped organize, everyone who helped run and everyone who competed in this completely enjoyable event.  

For Day by Day Details, Pictures and a lot of Plain Ol’ Fun, follow this link to the Woodlawn Sailing Club’s Alamo Classic Victoria Regatta site.

Put in Bay

Twin Lakes Annual, Mandeville, LA December 20th