By Dick Cline, Region 3 Commodore
If criteria for a successful regatta are having enough wind to race; enough racers to make the competition interesting; and enough on-land help to get it to all flow smoothly then the Region 3 Championship held at DSC on March 20 and 21 was an outstanding success! And if anyone asked those that came and participated, that’s about the one word that was used most often – “outstanding”… after the words “wild, wet, wonderful, and WOW”! The event kicked off with a welcome party hosted by DSC C22 Fleet 96 on the front deck with hot dogs, burgers of all types (beef, turkey, and salmon) and lots of snacks and cold liquids. Dick Cline and Judy Barnett did yeoman duty on the grill, and probably will get asked to do that again! The weather forecast for the weekend that evening called for Saturday to be about perfect – sunshine, winds of 8 to 10 but a warning that Sunday could include some storms. So the decision was made that on Saturday, if possible, instead of the scheduled three races, a forth race would be held in case Sunday did have some poor weather.
A total of 19 boats were entered, 11 in Gold Fleet and 8 in Silver. Going out to the big lake for the 11:45 start there was serious concern by all about the winds – they seemed to be gusting all the way up to 2 or 3 mph…a glass smooth lake! Everyone put up the big sails for a light air day! C22 National Association Commodore and PRO for the event Ted McGee held off a tad on the start time, looking for the breeze to build, and build it did!! It might have been the 8 to 10 mentioned at the quiet times, but usually it was a lot more than that. As you can see in the two pictures at the top of this article the winds got up and even up more. Seems a microburst or two had to visit the race area, and the results were as you might expect! Damages or concerns of some form and level occurred to five Gold Fleet boats and two Silver Fleet boats, and if you have a whisker pole business I know where there are a bunch of customers. But all four races were completed and the scores tallied. Sunday morning the weather was as predicted and the regatta was called complete based on the four races on Saturday. Winning the Gold Fleet Region 3 Championship was DSC racer Keith Bennett, with wife Jennifer doing all the hard crew work. Winning the Silver Fleet award was Bobby McCullough Jr from Tennessee. So – we had all the winds ya could ask for, great racing by some really great sailors, and the on-land help was equally superb. No regatta can be done by just the regatta chairman or the PRO, it takes lots of work behind the scenes to make it all happen smoothly, and that is just what happened. My sincere thanks to the following DSC club members for their unending help that made it great for all, not listed in any order other than what comes to my mind – they were all outstanding: Royetta and Wayne, Dee and George Randolph, Charlie and Marty French, Burl Murphy, Judy Barnett, Ron Dettwiler, Allison Davie and her mom and dad, and Wayne Carroll. These are the folks that really made it happen and I am proud to have them in our club.