Meet Hawk Caldwell, a relative newcomer to sailing. He says that he and his wife Stephanie hadn’t sailed a day in their lives before they moved from Colorado Springs to Dowell, Maryland about five years ago. Both of them started out as cruisers and then migrated to racing after a chance invitation on the dock came their way.
“We had been sailing on our cruising boat and one of the ladies at the marina asked us if we wanted to race. I’ve always been a very competitive person,” says Hawk, “playing collegiate basketball and doing Tough Mudder races, that sort of thing, so I said ‘Yeah. Love to.’ We got on their boat and they started teaching us about the competitive side of the sport. Initially, I was doing bow. I’m a tall guy and they had a symmetrical spinnaker setup, so that was a good fit. But we both took to racing right away, and it just developed from there.”
Hawk and Stephanie have only had their Henderson 30 – Short Bus – for about a year. They spent a few years racing on other people’s boats and then decided it was time to get rid of the cruiser and get a ride of their own. “I had been introduced to the Henderson 30 by another friend out on the west coast,” explains Hawk, “and I really loved the boat. It’s a high performance ride with lots of room for friends. So far it’s been awesome for us getting to know the boat. It’s just a blast.”
Hawk says that most of the racing the Short Bus team does is local stuff on their home waters of the Chesapeake Bay. “We really don’t take it on the road much. I think the farthest we’ve gone for an event is the Stingray Regatta down in Virginia. Stephanie and I and the crew really loved doing that, so we started talking about other travel events we might do, and that’s how Charleston got on our radar.”
For Caldwell and his Short Bus crew, this will be their first year competing at CRW. He says they’re “super excited. We know a number of other sailors who have been there and they talked it up for us. I’ve definitely heard about it around our club. We thought about going down to do Key West, but the logistics and timing involved made that tough. So, we’re going to do Charleston, see how it goes and maybe we’ll sign up for some other travel regattas. For our crew, CRW is the right time of year. A couple of the people we race with are teachers and this is a manageable event for them given the schedules in that profession.”
Short Bus typically sails with a crew of eight on board. “We met Kyle and Stefanie Potts on a different boat and they joined us as soon as we got Short Bus,” he says. “Kyle is my main trimmer and Stefanie trims headsails. My wife Stephanie does the bow and Tim Dillinger is our pit man, with sailmaker Clark McKinney doing tactics and runners. Chris Dowell is in the cockpit as a secondary trimmer and Justin Marut is our mast man. What’s cool is that Justin joined our crew with no sailing experience whatsoever, but now he’s got this diehard passion for racing.”
Caldwell, who is an engineer by trade, says that his crew’s skills have grown steadily as they’ve learned the boat over the past year. So, what’s his outlook for Race Week? “Well, we haven’t really raced against most of the boats that will end up in our class, but we have a feeling that the competition will be tough. Nonetheless, we’ve got pretty high expectations for ourselves. We want to do well, and we also want to enjoy being in Charleston. We’re still learning the boat, but we’re really happy to be able to represent the Southern Maryland Sailing Association. Ultimately, we’re a fun-loving group of people and we’re looking forward to getting down there and having some great racing.”
