East Coast Championships Regatta 2014

Longboard StartBABA had a warm, sunny and light wind ECC Regatta on September 20 & 21st.  Longboard racing was the call as the wind remained light and variable both days.  Our Formula fleet showed up on Saturday and kept the benches warm waiting for enough wind to run a few races, but mother nature didn’t cooperate.

Big thanks go to Jeff and Darlene Forte for bringing Something Special, our committee boat for the weekend.  Guillaume Vernieres (aka G) brought his RIB (that’s rigid inflatable boat) which Race Organizer Warren Evans captained to place marks, run the photographer around (that was me) and serve as safety boat in case anyone needed to be rescued.  Warren learned that G’s boat only speaks French, but once over the language barrier, some sweet talk kept her running for the weekend.  Race Director Dave Iseri motivated the longboard fleet to complete 6 races and our dedicated volunteers made the weekend fun for everyone.

Our land and water volunteers for the event also included Tom Caswell (aka Scooter), Janice Emerling, Ann Jackson, Amber Kasbeer, Fan Pat, Collin Pitts, Mike McCormick and Helen Van Gelder.  Helen is  behind the scenes for every event, trip and membership drive making sure fees are deposited, expenses are paid and our books balanced.  Thank you everyone!

Results:

Guillaume swept the event with 5 firsts and a DNS.  The Men’s Open Class had a tight contest for 2nd & 3rd with the tie breaker going to John Contos over Colin Pitts.  Congratulations to everyone who competed, especially Novice racer Anthony Burrows.

Novice:  Anthony Burrows (1st)

7.5 Limited Men: Chris Wattengel (1st)

Open Women: Fan Pat (1st), Amber Kasbeer (2nd)

Open Men: Guillaume Vernieres (1st), John Contos (2nd), Colin Pitts (3rd)

Picture Gallery follows…… click the first picture to open the gallery as a slide show.

Spring Regattas

Lining up for a start from the beach
Lining up for the Le Mans start.

We had a great start to the spring racing season with our annual Gerry Brown Memorial Regatta for Cancer Research at Baltimore County Sailing Center.  It was a light-wind day for an enthusiastic bunch of long boarders.  BCSC Director Eileen Fahrmeier set some marks for and upwind downwind course and we had a Le Mans style start from the beach.  The wind was flukey and dying so the crew completed one race and spent the rest of the day free sailing in Hawk Cove.  BABA members contributed about $500 to the Sidney Kimmel Center for Cancer Research at Johns Hopkins.  Thank you to everyone who contributed and who came out for the event.  It was great to see Jack Ames back out on the race course after a long hiatus.  Big thanks to our host, Eileen and BCSC.  Check out their website and programs for youth and adult sailing.  There’s also a week-long windsurfing camp for kids every summer.