CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, April 16, 2015 — Friday’s wintery conditions were barely a memory after today’s picture-perfect Day 2 at Sperry Charleston Race Week, with 15-20 knots of wind inshore and over 20 outside the jetties. The conditions allowed for racing across all the courses at the spring’s premier event despite seas that ranged from ‘bumpy’ to ‘scary’ according to crews returning from the offshore race course.
Sailing in handicap racing Class B, Frickie Martschink and Bill MacKenzie’s crew on board their J/105 RumFront out of Charleston said the racing was great “The ride out was pretty rough, but once on the course, conditions were not easy, but good for racing,” said Martschink, who said the highlight of his day was rounding the top mark and setting the asymmetrical spinnaker. “Once we got that set, we were smoking, and what a blast…well, until we had a little issue getting the kite down.”
Among Martschink’s competition in the 10-boat class is his brother Miles, who helms an identical J/105 named Skimmer. “We’re going to make sure our crew work is clean and quick tomorrow so we can be sure to beat my brother,” said Martschink.
Overhead waves against the tide caused problems for even the most seasoned sailors, but it was the crew of the Circle 5 Race Committee boat that faced the biggest challenge on Saturday. After the first race of the day, a huge wave launched the 36-foot offshore fishing boat into the air, seriously injuring two crew. With transfer to a safety boat impossible in the rough water, the race officials were forced to return to shore, ending the day for Circle 5 after one race.
Event Director Randy Draftz expects to move the racing deadline to help get in as much racing on Sunday as possible. “While we’re extremely sorry that racing was called early on Circle 5, we’re glad our on-course volunteers are safe and sound on shore after a freak accident,” said Draftz. “Sunday we'll make up for it with three great races – I guarantee it!” he added with a smile. More importantly, Draftz says his race management team will learn from the incident. “When the waves are up, patient transfer is a real problem offshore, so we’ll need to work with our safety experts to come up with a solution to today’s issues without a loss of racing time.
In the Pursuit Class, the boats started near Sullivan’s Island and sailed out between the Charleston Harbor jetties before turning upwind for a four-mile beat. “For me,” said Eddie Evans, a Charleston racer who is sailing his Beneteau 381 Naut-on-Call, “today was a brutal race. I loved it, but having a four-mile beat, that was physically taxing.”
Evans said he and his crew performed very well except for misjudging the layline at the top mark. “That cost us about three minutes because of how big the waves were. In a few places, I’d say they were seven to eight feet. With the ebb tide flowing, the waves were stacking up pretty good. And the wind was strong, about 20 knots steady, with puffs to 23. But today was all about sail selection. We had to decide if we wanted the working headsail for the beat or the 155 genoa for the reach out and the reach in. Ultimately, we went with the 155 and just ended up partially furling it on the beat.”
For the Naut-on-Call crew, the only downer was not being able to play the shifts. “You couldn’t really sail to the shifts because of how big the waves were. You just had to eliminate tacks. But, we made great time downwind with our reaching kite. I can sail almost dead-downwind with that thing. It’s our money sail. As well as we sailed after the top mark, we still couldn’t catch Ken King’s Quintette. He’s turning out to be our nemesis again because we’re nearly tied for third."
Also in the Pursuit Class, Jim O’Connor and Eric Dejager were crewing on Charleston skipper Scott Strother’s Sabre 30 Destiny. They say the team performed well in the sporty conditions in the 24-mile race for the Pursuit/Non-Spinnaker Class today. “The conditions were intense to say the least, but it was everything you could want in an offshore race: Big waves, big wind, a serious challenge – and in the end, we had a real sprint to the finish trying to hold off the fourth place boat,” said O’Conner. Destiny beat that boat by just three seconds. “Now that’s intense,” he added.
As O’Conner reached up to grab a T-shirt launched into the crowd by Gosling’s Girls, he commented on Sunday’s strategy to move up from 3rd place. “We’re not going to get too drunk tonight,” both O’Conner and Dejager said, as if on cue.
Richmond, VA’s Travis Weisleder (Lucky Dog/Gill Race Team) last won Charleston Race Week nearly a decade ago, before taking a hiatus from the Melges 24 class, and thie College of Charleston alum is returning to the class with a bang in 2016. He sits just a point behind former world champ Bruce Ayres (Monsoon) after eight races, including a nearly four-minute smashing of the fleet in the final race of the day – an unprecedented victory in a fleet that usually sees dozens of boats cross the finish line within a minute. “That race was a lot of fun, but look – the forecast was right, the current relief was right, and so we went as far right as we could,” said Weisleder, who attributes his good success despite some rust to lots of recent work on speed and tune and lots of local knowledge. “John Bowden, one of our crew, lives and makes sails here, I raced here, so we’re not going to miss that one.” As usual in the Melges 24 fleet, it will, most likely, come down to the final race. “This is definitely a training regatta for us, but we think we’re fast enough to win it all. We’ll see tomorrow!” said Weisleder.
Thirteen year-old Gannon Troutman continues to lead the huge J/70 fleet despite blowing up a spinnaker. “A little hole at the top mark held until the very end of the last race, and it tore to pieces in seconds,” said Troutman. “We still got first place, though,” he said.
