International Lightning Class
Southeastern District Championship 2009 Columbia Sailing Club
April 25-26
Four boats from CYC traveled to Lake Murray, Pierce Barden, John Sawyer, Richard Waldkirch and Paul Whitesides sailing Martha Fisher’s boat.
Columbia is centrally located in the district and has hosted the championship for past two years. 15 boats competed. Next year it is moving to the coast.
This year, lack of wind was the big deal, ironically it had blown hard for days leading up to the weekend, and the forecast was good but …….
Our local band of travelers camped along the lake in a great spot, with Richard’s crew Mickey Southerland taking the award for the most refined accommodation. Mickey’s camping ensemble is truly a thing of beauty. Standing room tent, sleeping cot with duvet’, pillow with special meaning, side table, reading lamp, area rug. He does not have a CD player but just turns the one up in the truck. He is the senior member of the tribe so we don’t say anything about the music.
Paul Whitesides and Martha Fisher have Martha’s grandfather’s boat (George Fisher was a great lightning sailor, and Martha must be genetically pre-positioned because she sails very well.) The boat has big history. Paul put a lot of TLC in the boat this winter it looks great and goes fast.
Saturday started with light wind dropping off mid afternoon to nothing but then coming back up late around 4pm and solid all night, what’s that about? The locals said this was normal, maybe we could race at night? The first race was very bad for team Sawyer we could never break out and all the zephyrs bypassed us. Fortunately the race was discarded for being shortened to only two legs, note to PRO’s, three is the class minimum.
Race two started as the wind was coming back. We noticed more wind on the left side near the dam rounded the first mark 3 or 4 and after five legs finished third. Rum drinks on shore were promised so we all sailed hard for the club. I don’t take beer on the boat so my crew situation was getting a little testy.
Life on the porch overlooking the lake, Mickey’s music in the background, rum drink in hand is not bad, and the breeze was so steady.
Sunday; we have one race in the can so we have a lot to do today. The wind has dropped off but the air feels dryer and colder, good signs. We sailed four races today, race 2 &3 in 6-8 mph wind, team Sawyer did well finishing 2 and 1. So we are at a total of 6 points and no one near. Race 4 we are dreading, wind has dropped to 3mph and is looking to go to nothing. We finished 12th. Lesson learned, minimize tacks, and don’t sail out on the corner chasing wind certainly when you are in first place. Basically we sailed far right into better wind on the downwind leg but the wind filled in from the left and lifted the fleet to the mark. The RC shorten course to a very short third leg weather mark. End of story.
Wind was again on the lake so race five was sailed. We rounded back in the fleet at the first mark probably due to thinking about race 4. Got our heads back on the downwind runs and got in good pressure and in phase with the wind shifts arriving 3rd at last bottom mark with Paul and Martha close behind. Pierce leading the race and Terry Tyner in second both were out of range so we worked with Paul, maintained a lose cover and finished 3rd. We both actually closed on the leaders.
Race 4 put us in second with Terry Tyner from Columbia winning. The Wilmington boats were very competitive with all four boats finishing in the top six places. Good sailing.
John Sawyer
See the results here.
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