This year was the 60th anniversary of this famous Memorial Day weekend event, and the Whiskeytown Sailing Club and its members again did a wonderful job! This is also becoming the main event for the West Coast FD sailors.
The Carrs came down again the long stretch from Seattle area. They are a fixture to this event by now – even the local hydro powerplant is named after them!
Jim Conachen’s wooden Van Doesburg FD from 1968 caught a lot of adoration; Jim did a wonderful job in restoring this boat that used to belong to Buzz Ballenger (who unfortunately could not join the event due to work).
Three FDs showed up for this event: the Carrs, Jim Conachen, and Gerhard Panuschka.
There were reserved tent spaces for the sailors in the group camp nearby; RVs were allowed to stay in the parking lot of the launch ramp.
All boats had to be inspected for the Golden Mussel that was recently discovered in some lakes on the West Coast. The federal inspectors were very friendly, including the sniffing dogs.
The westerly wind on Saturday morning started to die just before the 1100 first start, as predicted by the locals. Nevertheless, the race committee was able to get three races through that day.
Jumping into the refreshing water was fun after the races.
We were starving when dinner started at 1730. There was also a band playing good music from the ‘70ies and ‘80ies.
Gerhard just returned from Europe and was not able to find crew. Jim did not have crew either, so on Saturday Jim helmed the West Coast Lindsay with Gerhard as crew. Jim had to leave on Sunday to prepare for the Memorial Day celebrations on Monday: he is playing his bag pipe. The FD sailors sat with a group of nice people during the dinner on Saturday. Gerhard mentioned that he needed crew for Sunday, and Anna, a nice woman with no sailing experience, agreed. Somehow, Gerhard must have been convincing ;-).
A lot of partying was going on that night, and some sailors were a little tired the next day.
Sunday was another beautiful sunny and warm day with 10 to 15 knots of wind (3 Beaufort) from the East that lasted all day. The FDs even got to use the trapeze! (except for Gerhard with Anna, who did a wonderful job handling the Genoa, but we didn’t want to overwhelm her). We raced another three races for a total of six races as planned.
More than 60 boats registered. A total of seven groups started in a 3-minute sequence. Some classes had their own starts (Snipe, El Toro, Wabbit). The FDs started in the Centerboard A group together with C-15s, a Buccaneer, and two other fast dinghies, a Nomad and a VX-One (technically a keel boat). The VX-One was the fastest and got second place overall on corrected time. First place went to the Nomad, a father sailing with his two young kids – they are also from Gerhard’s Lake Washington Sailing Club.
Peter Carr and his son Conner became 5th behind the two C-15 (the FD’s rating of 80.1 was not in our favor), and Gerhard on 6th. Jim’s FD did not get in the water due to the lack of crew.
As Peter Carr already mentioned in his Facebook post, the Whiskeytown Regatta does not disappoint year after year. We will be back next year, and we welcome all of you to join the fun!
