Kennedy Cup

Finally a little wind in Annapolis!

10 teams showed up at Navy this morning to contest the Kennedy Cup aboard Navy’s fleet of 44’ sloops.

Although most wind forecasts called for the breeze to veer and die, it actually built and then held for the first two races then tapered off but stayed left for the final two races.

Navy started out strong winning the pin end in race one and stretched out to take the bullet.

Coast Guard took the hint and nailed the pin for race 2 and also won the race.

USF won the pin in race 3 and guess what.. they came first!

In the 4th race, Mass Maritime barely scraped by the pin and…… you guessed it! won the race... Getting left was the order of the day and those that managed to find and hold a lane left early were usually rewarded.

At the end of four races, the consistent sailing by USF (3,3,1,4) has them at the top of the leaderboard, 6 points ahead of second place Mass Maritime and 7 ahead of Charleston.

One team took an I flag penalty in race 2 and there was one general recall.

Thanks to PRO Paul Clissold and his crack NASS RC team for a great job banging off 4 solid races in the challenging conditions.

Racing continues tomorrow!

Jahn Tihansky Regatta Chair

Today started out more or less on forecast with a light but sailable southeasterly. But as time for first warning approached, it lightened up and shifted hard right prompting PRO Paul Clissold to hoist AP.

The breeze remained light for over an hour as the fleet waited nervously to see whether races could be had. The wind did fill back in around 6 knots from the SSE and race 5 was started. SUNY pushed Navy and themselves over at the pin while Charleston was over mid line. Up the first beat Cal led out of the left then to the starboard layline. Mass Maritime was a few lengths back in second and leader USF was third.

Navy rounded 9th but was first to jibe and found a seam of breeze to come back across which allowed them to make big gains moving up to 4th at the gate. Navy crossed and tacked on USF but got tacked on by Mass so the top four rounded as they were at the bottom. Mass nipped Cal at the finish to take the win and preserve their well-deserved 2nd place for the regatta. Cal held on for second while USF crossed 3rd for the race giving them the consistent scoreline that won them the regatta (3,3,1,4,3). Navy finished 4th which moved them up to 3rd overall one point ahead of Cal.

Congratulations to the USF Bulls for their second consecutive Kennedy Cup win!

Thanks are due to a number of folks including PRO Clissold and the NASS Race Committee which included Jan Richardson, Maureen Mills, Ed Kee, Fran Wright, Ken Liddick, Bob Holmes, Bill Museler, Duane Moore, John Yanik, Paul Grimm, Kevin Reeds and a bunch of Mids from Offshore Sailing team.

Thanks also to the Offshore Sailing Team Volunteer coaches who sevred as safety officers including Mike Brownlee, Nelson Pemberton, Dick Lunsford, Dan Trammell, Mike Reifer, Carroll Sparwasser, David Shaeffer, Jesse Falsone, Pancho Gonzales & Steve Cohan.

And lastly to our jury who thanks to the good behavior of the competitors were not needed to hear any grievances: Chair Dan Trammell, and his jurors Maureen Mills, Nelson Pemberton, Taran Teague and Dick Lunsford.

Jahn Tihansky Regatta Chair

The following chart shows the relative rank of the teams as of the race indicated. Note that the races are ordered by number, then division, which may not represent the order in which the races were actually sailed.

The first place team as of a given race will always be at the top of the chart. The spacing from one team to the next shows relative gains/losses made from one race to the next. You may hover over the data points to display the total score as of that race.