|
|
By Francis Angel
For the fourth year in a row the 19 Captains attending the Twenty-fourth Annual Century Cup Regatta held by The Piedmont Model Yacht Club at Elon, NC on June 11-12, 2005 were blessed with good weather and enough wind to race 28 heats. The 2 fleet promotion relegation heat system was used. Each captain sailed in 2 seeding heats and at least 13 fleet heats. Their best finish in the seeding heats was carried forward and one addition throw out for the fleet heats was allowed.
Gerry Cobley, Rick Hawley,
Rick Gerry and Rick West were locked in a four-way struggle for
the top slot. An 8-point spread covered the top four places
when the Saturday segment was finished. Could the name “Rick” be
an advantage in model yachting? Doug Hale, Fred Maurer, Carl Olbrich, and Scott Vernon vied for the remaining trophy. The racing was extremely close with seven different captains posting “bullets”. If there was a dominant skipper, it was Chris Kakavas. Chris had to attend a wedding on Saturday so he started Sunday with a score of 142. Nine from the seeding race and seven DNS (19 points each) collected on Saturday. 12 heats were run Sunday and Captain Kakavas finished in 12th place with a score of 142 after the throw out. Skip Allen was “King of the Bubble”. Skip sailed in 21 of the 28 heats. Lunch was the traditional “Order Up” from McDonalds, collected and distributed by Linda Angel (Frank’s boss) and aided by Nancy Maurer and Margie Cain. I had designated Carter Cain to bring the wind to Elon and he did an outstanding job. We had 5-7 mph wind from the SW for almost all the heats. Rick “Rainman” West, our esteemed EC 12 Class Secretary was appointed rain master and managed to hold it off until the last heat when a short light shower fell. Not enough to get anything wet, just enough to fulfill the prophecy of “ It always rains on Rick”. Gerry Cobley was awarded the “Sportsman of the Regatta” title. After the five trophies had been handed out and the photos taken Gerry discovered an error on the scoreboard. You guessed correctly, it was in the throw outs. In our haste to finish up before the real rain arrived we had used the wrong throw out for Rick Hawley. The correction gave Hawley top honors. Like true sportsmen they exchanged trophies and congratulated each other. I’ve been reluctant to use a laptop at my regattas and this incident may change my mind. My apologies to both and to Carl Olbrich who I caused to lose a big lead in a heat when I abandoned that heat after making an improper “Shorten Course” call. We were honored to have one of the PMYC’s founding fathers in attendance. Don Gilliam, who has been having some serious health problems the last few years felt good enough to stop by an spend a few minutes with us. Everyone was delighted to see him up and about. Thanks to all the skippers and wives for making this a fun event. Dan Scudder was Race Starter and Mark Judge; Cameron Hunt served as Scorekeeper, our newest member Alan Frenald and his dad Jerry as Mark Judges, Chris Kakavas who launched and retrieved all the marks and Paul Bowen who spent several afternoons at the lake removing the worst of the goose droppings. All in all, the fleet was very close with only a very few points separating most of the finishing positions as the scores below reflect.
Finish Captain Score State1. Rick Hawley 48 SC 2. Gerry Cobley 52 NC 3. Dick Gerry 57 SC 4. Rick West 61 CA 5. Fred Maurer 76 PA 6. Carl Olbrich 86 FL/NC 7. Scott Vernon 90 GA 8. Doug Hale 91 NC 9. Carter Cain 106 SC 10. Bob Mersereau 108 NC 11. Skip Allen 113 GA 12. Chris Kakavas 142* NC 13. Mike Hiester 142* SC 14. Dick Gerry 153 SC 15. Dennis McInerney 155 SC 16. Vance Kinlaw 165 NC 17. Jim Utley 180 NC 18. John Unterreiner 208** NC 19. Paul Bowen 218 NC * Tiebreaker ** Did not sail Sunday |
|
|