
Anderson, South Carolina is home to football fans, serious college football fans. I didn’t know that the first time I went to Western Carolina Sailing Club…but it didn’t take long to figure that out. Anderson is just a stone’s throw from Clemson…a serious football town, and everywhere you look you see orange bumper stickers…window decals…you name it, it’s there. But being alongside Lake Hartwell, these folks like to sail, A LOT! When October rolls around it shows. Nearly seventy boats participated in the one design and Keelboat fleets at this regatta this year. For Kristi and I, this was the fourth trip to the WCSC Hospice regatta, which raises money for the regional hospice center in Anderson, it won’t be our last. Lake Hartwell is a mountain reservoir and typically a light air venue. Large land masses on the narrow lake give local sailors a significant advantage in the shifting light lake conditions due to the somewhat regular, yet peculiar, patterns of thermals. The lake is relatively narrow, so when the wind does pick up the water is nearly always flat.
This year’s Hospice regatta was selected by the Buccaneer Class Association to be the “Macalpine-Downey Gibbs Cup” regatta. The winners of the regatta would have their name engraved on a perpetual class trophy commemorating the designers of the Buccaneer 18. At this regatta we also announce the name of the “Quaiche bearer”. Each year a member of the class who has contributed greatly to the class will have his/her name engraved on a perpetual trophy with a Scottish Quaiche (shallow drinking bowl pronounced “kweyKh”…yeah, say that three times fast!) atop. This person will hold the Quaiche for the following year.
A massive front moved across the entire east coast this weekend and brought bright skies and huge winds. The breeze early in the morning was light as mornings typically are, but as the sun rose and the sky got brighter whitecap conditions arose before the first gun. We held two races on day one, the first in 12-15 knot conditions, exciting, but very manageable. The entire fleet was smiling from ear to ear. As I mentioned earlier, the big lake, with its short fetch doesn’t allow for big waves, so we were capable of planing speeds both up and downwind. The race was tight, overlaps at each mark…this eleven boat fleet came to race and it showed.
The first start of the regatta brought eleven Buccaneers to the line. There was a good strong breeze, and the practice tacks we had taken upwind showed that it was likely to be a port favored beat. The pin was also a bit windward. Trying to port tack the fleet at the pin in a strong breeze didn’t seem like too good of an idea. The line was short, and with port tack favored I thought there would be a large hole at the starboard end of the line, so we shot for the committee boat. We hit the line with full speed as the starting gun sounded. As I expected there was a large hole and we were able to bear off as needed to keep the boat moving through the chop on the lake. We worked our way upwind, and watched for an opportunity to tack as the wind shifted. We knew that the locals had an advantage on this lake due to the unique geography. Our plan was to stay between the local sailors and the mark. It seemed like a good plan until Steve Kimele, known for his ‘flyers’ tacked away early and made a run for the right side of the course. We decided to let Steve go and cover the rest of the fleet, hoping the strong breeze would level the playing field. We were right, and as we made our way upwind the left side proved to be favored, and we approached the top mark in the lead. Rick Scarborough was hot on our tail, and wouldn’t be shaken easily..but we managed to hold him off by two boat lengths through the finish securing the first bullet of the regatta.
The Buccaneers were the first start of the regatta, and being first to cross the line gave us quite a bit of time to cruise around before the next race. We enjoyed our peanut butter sandwiches, I think there was supposed to be jelly on there too, but couldn’t find much evidence of that. As we ate and cruised back and forth waiting for the next race, the skies darkened just a bit. The wind got much stronger and the boats began to accelerate greatly. While the first race was concluded with gusts around 15 knots, the second race would start with wind speeds of 18 knots in the lulls. Gusts to 28 knots would be recorded before the end of the race. The wind strength was so strong by this point that you couldn’t tack using the mainsail alone or you would stall head to wind and have to steer backwards.
With such strong winds, and a relatively short starting line, we didn’t feel it was too imperative to fight for a position at the crowded favored (pin) end of the line. As with the first race we aimed to time a boat end start. We expected that with the strong conditions the fleet starting on starboard would be pushed significantly towards the pin, so we started about 2-3 seconds back of the line with full speed heading for the committee boat. We were just a little off on our timing. The resulting 3 second delay from the gun to our crossing of the line was worth it to gain a windward advantage and a large hole to leeward to foot off if needed. We felt good about our start and raced to the top mark in a pack of five boats watching for trim gusts from the other boats. The leading boat “Sanguine” at this time helmed by Rick Scarborough of Alabama seemed to be gliding effortlessly through the strong breeze as if it were an eight knot sunset cruise. We had to figure out what he was doing. We never did.
As we approached the top mark Rick held a strong lead of about 5 boat lengths over us, and had Patrick Hopp’s “Wasabi” was just behind him. Alongside us were Mark & Noah Gyorgy as well as Ronnie & David Ashmore…this race was going to be close. We rounded the mark, took the inside lane and set the spinnaker. Rick, being in a significant lead played it safe and sailed Wing-on-Wing to the leeward mark. We were not able to catch Rick, but did pass Patrick prior to the mark by utilizing the inside advantage as we neared three boat circle.
On the windward beat both Wasabi and Sanguine showed excellent boat speed. Sanguine seemed to stretch her lead, while Wasabi chipped steadily away at ours. Wasabi eventually passed us on our right side. At approximately ¾ the way to the top mark we saw an opportunity to pass by staying left as the other two went right. There was a slight left shift that made the port tack favored coming into the mark, and we felt that if we got to the left of the other boats we would able to capitalize on the favored tack for the last tack of the beat. The gamble worked, and we crossed both Sanguine and Wasabi by just 2 boat lengths before turning for the mark. Our subsequent tack put us even with Sanguine after rounding the mark and we both set our spinnakers for the final run. At this point it was pure excitement. The wind had built to steady 18-20 knot speeds with gusts close to 30 knots. We were planing along, shifting our bodyweight aft to keep the bow up as we sped along downwind. The wind began to shift to the right, causing the spinnaker to collapse and indicating the need for a gybe. We had successfully gybed on the previous run, but right now we were in the middle of one of the biggest gusts of the day…and it wasn’t interested in easing any time soon. We decided to hold the gybe until the lull. It was a good call because there was no lull, only another shift. Fortunately this shift was from the left. This allowed us to bear away to the finish line, and protect our air from Rick who had worked his way over us and was attempting to blanket us and slingshot in for a victory. Instead the shift sealed the second win of the day for us.
At the party that night all the talk was about the huge winds, and the bigger grins that come along with it. I don’t know how fast you’re going when you’re planing along in 20 knots of breeze…faster than you’ve ever sailed before, then a 30 knot puff hits you…but however fast that is….WOW.
Sunday morning was a totally different animal. The sky was bright and only a few puffy clouds were on the horizon. There was a very light thermal along the shore that came and gave us enough push to get out to the course where at 10:00 the Race Committee would signal the first postponement. We rafted up alongside the other crews and enjoyed a beautiful morning; some snacks…even a screw top beer from Captain Meddock’s magic bottomless cooler. By noon the race committee had seen enough to call it for the day. The races were abandoned, and the regatta was over.
It was our fourth attempt at the WCSC Hospice regatta. In all previous attempts Kristi and I have been denied access to any spot on the podium…but not this time. Perhaps it was our newest little good luck charm (newborn daughter, Annabelle). Regardless of how, or why, we were able to claim first prize.