Golden Anniversary Regatta was Phenomenal Success

And so it turned out to be.  By the time formal registration was complete on Saturday morning, and scratch sheets drawn up, the number of entrants stood at 64 boats!  These were grouped into five one-design fleets, an open fleet, and a small fleet of cruising trimarans.  Registration time was also t-shirt time, with regatta t-shirts designed by Roton Pointer Steve Fritsch who was the winner of the t-shirt design contest for the regatta.

Contestants came from 12 states; the longest driven were four boats from Maine, and the furthest away of all was James Bildahl who flew in from Montana.

The A-cat fleet was comprised of 6 very high-tech boats, all from New Jersey.  These single-handers, often incorporating carbon fiber, are one of the fastest-growing fleets in the country.  This is probably partly due to the fact that skippers do not need to look for crew.

The Formula 18 (F-18) fleet was comprised of 15 boats.  The class allows boats of different manufacturers to race as one-design, provided they meet stipulated design criteria.  These are currently the boat of choice for “go fast” sailors.  It is a thrilling sight to see them beating upwind with both crew out on the wire, and the windward hull out of the water.  Even better is to see them tacking downwind, with the spinnaker deployed at significantly increasing boat speed.

The largest fleet, Hobie 16s, was comprised of 17 boats.  This venerable design in still in production after scores of years, as attested to by the highest sail number (112062) in the regatta.

There were 6 boats in the Hobie 18 fleet and 6 boats in the Hobie 21 fleet.  Roton Point is probably the only venue left where 21s are still raced.  There is a strong historical significance in that it was at Roton Point that the Hobie 21 Continentals were held in 1996-1998.  The H21 is the largest beach catamaran Hobie ever produced.  Like the H18s, the H21 is no longer in production.  The H21 was one of the first classes to carry a large spinnaker for down-wind sailing.

“The rest” of the boats (11 boats) sailed in the Open class, under the Portsmouth rating system. 

The weather and wind gods smiled on Roton Point on Saturday, with sunny skies, balmy temperature, and a constant Northerly breeze of 7 to 15 knots.  Mike Levesque (Principal Race Officer) was able to set a windward-leeward course (with short and long windward marks) and basically leave it set for the full day of racing.  To allow a multitude of starts and finishes, the start line was set on the port side of the signal boat and the finish line on the starboard side.  The signal boat was stationed downwind of the leeward gates.

This arrangement and the steady breeze allowed five races to be run by all six classes.  Race photographs contain many fantastic shots of boats beating to windward and tacking downwind with windward hulls flying.  The added benefit of flat water meant very few capsizes.

The Race Committee also gave a start to the “Cruising Fleet” of three large trimarans, which sailed their own 17-mile course and finished off the west jetty of Roton Point.

The day’s racing was followed by cocktails and four tables of hors d’euvres provided by RPSA and Roton Point Club members.  Sailors and guests could also go into the Hotel to view a fully edited slide show of the day’s races provided by club member Marty Milewski.  This flowed into the traditional steak dinner for which about 150 lbs of steak were cooked by “the usual” Roton Pointers (Kevin Simmons, Marty Roth, Bruce Given, Dan McDermott and James Sebastian).  After the fantastic dinner dance music was provided by the Jimmy Buffet tribute band "Changes in Latitude".  As always, regatta festivities were open to all Roton Point members.  Rumor goes that over 300 dinners were served.  The evening scene at Roton Point took us back to the days when the “grove” was packed to capacity with tents of visiting sailors and the back lot was overflowing with boats and RVs.  

Many thanks to Scott Malcolm for his help with scoring; results of the day were ready for viewing when sailors woke up for the continental breakfast on Sunday morning.

The wind gods evidently decided they had been too kind to Roton Point on Saturday, and so turned off the wind on Sunday.  After waiting until noon the PRO declared further racing abandoned; this turned out to be a wise decision as the day remained calm.

Therefore Saturday’s scoring became final scoring; with five races sailed one discard was allowed.  Full results are available at www.rotonpoint.org/sailing.  First prizes went as follows:

During the awards ceremony Joe Valante, a long-time supporter of Roton Point and arguably one of the best H21 sailors around, was recognized for the donation several years ago to Roton Point of a revolving plaque presented to the year’s best H21 sailors.  The plaque is always on display in the trophy case.  It bears quite an impressive list of sailors’ names.  Past Commodore Ron Borge, a Hobie 21 sailor, awarded the trophy for 2009 to H21 sailors and class winners James Bildahl and crew Marty Roth.

Another special presentation was a large framed photograph of PL3, which won the “Little America’s Cup in 1976.  Some of the original “Patient Lady” team and Ron Borge handed this to Rick Bliss in recognition of Rick’s long-term support of RPSA regattas.  His “parts truck” has assisted many a sailor after an equipment breakdown at our regattas.

Thanks are due to North Sails and Hathaway, Reiser & Raymond for their donations of tote bags as door prizes.

The NOR states clearly that the RPSA regatta is manned by volunteers.  The volunteers are numerous and invaluable to the success of such a large event as this regatta turned out to be.  The Regatta Chairman was Ronald Borge and the Race Chairman was Michael Smith.  On the signal boat, along with PRO Mike Levesque, was Joze Roth, Shelli Skeels, Woody Bliss, Dan McDermott and Laszlo Papp.  The mark boat was skippered by Bob Steckel (who generously leant his boat for the event) and crewed by Pax Gifford and Bruce Given.  The pin boat was manned by Tom Failla and Pete Weber.  Hal Thormahlen performed the demanding job of Beach Captain, while Marilyn Atkin, Bruce Wilson and Chip Romans handled this year’s registrations.

Anyone who enjoyed the meal at the regatta knows full well that if Laura O’Brien, Nancy Given, Debbie Douglas and Nancy Borge weren’t there, we would never have been treated so royally.  It seemed that every Club member volunteered in some way to ensure the visiting sailors and guests were never in need of anything.  The list is far too long to print but those who helped can enjoy the satisfaction of knowing their job was well done and much appreciated.  The Roton Point staff did its usual great job in assisting all the Club volunteers.  

We intend to put a slide shoe of regatta photos onto this web site; until we do so Eric Tamme's photos can be seen at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/etamme/sets/72157622300056227/

And so the much-anticipated Golden Anniversary has come and gone, leaving indelible memories for all who participated.  Now it’s on to the next fifty years!