MARDI GRAS REGATTA WRAP-UP
Down in New Orleans where the blues were born…it takes a cool cat…just to blow his horn. We had yet another great weekend of light air sailing. We had perfect weather that hovered around the high 50’s to low 60’s but the breeze crumped in the afternoon of both days. The turn out was great for one design and a little light for phrf. We had a total of 70 boats on three courses…so check out the results, as I couldn’t cover it all…especially when I sailed on both days.
On the GYA Capedeville course NOYC took three bullets to win the regatta. The NOYC team was made up of old timer Robert Brennan, Rory Hebbler & Ryan Hebbler. Rory & Ryan were both students of Gilbert’s Flying Scot School of Sailing. Ryan’s first place finish qualifies him for a driver slot on the 2002 NOYC Lipton Team. Ryan said, “I hadn’t driven a boat since Jr. Lipton’s 10 years ago…it’s like riding bikeâ€. Ryan will be getting married in two weeks and we will miss him dearly.
In the Opti Class, they had 13 boats. JJ Killeen won the white fleet, Keil Kileen won the blue fleet and Jackson Benvenutti won overall class and red fleet. With a name like that he should be racing grand prix carts in Italy….it sounds very fast…good name for a driver.
In the Laser Radial Class, they had 6 boats. John Loe was first and Baker Potts finished second. GYA webmaster Bishop Stieffel won the very competitive Sunfish class. This was a very competitive fleet as each skipper won at least one race out of the five sailed. Christian Gambel (The good one) won the V-15 class and Bernie Wolf won the open Scots class.
Over on the keel boat course, Zephyr won the 6 boat J-30 class with inconsistent finishes of two firsts and two fourths. Danny Cassanova sailing Jackpot was nosed out in two very close finishes by Manny Blanco’s Cuba Libre but was able to win the point tiebreaker to take second in class. In the J-22 class Dwight Leblanc skippering Wavemaker had ringer Hans Douglebourg (past Soling world champion) racing with him on the first day. They double handed their J-22 to a first place finish passing most of the J-30’s that started five minutes ahead. Wavemaker took the four race series with 13 points that included a DNS. Some nice guys from Tejas on Green Flash finished second and may have had two good of a time at the French Quarter on Saturday night. Benz Faget’s J Poupon finished third.
Over on the handicap course, it was a new “Boat Out Of The Box†dealer weekend! Allen Borne of Pontchartrain Yacht Sales won class B sailing his new C&C 99 with two first place finishes and a third. Stanton Murray of Murray Yacht Sales won Class A driving his new Beneteau 36.7 with similar finishes. Cliff Dummett’s Bravurra 29 Beast came on stronger in every race and finished Second in Class A. Non Spinnaker was won by Awapui.
It was a first class regatta. The race management was excellent even though some impatient sailors had to learn a lesson the hard way. A special thanks is in order to all the volunteers, planners and sponsors that include Treasure Chest Casino & Meme’s Grocery store that helped made it such a fun weekend. Next event at NOYC will be Leukemia Cup March 23rd & 24th.
-steinkamp
