Surf City Regatta

Surf City served up two days of beautiful sailing on the New Jersey Shore.
Although there were only 9 Snipes, the competition was very close and the
regatta winner was decided by the order of finishes in the last rece. The
race committee commented, as 5 Snipes crossed the line within about 5
seconds, that we were the most fun to watch in this mulitclass event.

Three races were completed on the first day in an 8-12 knot southerly. The
racing was very close with finishes jumbled around resulting in the top 4
boats being within 4 points. The Surf City Yacht Club put on a great Clam
Bake on Saturday Evening with more beer, clams, corn, pasta and 2 different
types of muscles one could comfortably eat.

Sunday morning brought very little breeze and with a 1 pm drop dead time,
it looked pretty grim. Several boats headed back to the dock in search of
the beach, but ultimately the famous NJ sea breeze filled in at 12:30
yielding perhaps the best race of the series. The finishing combinations
were being worked out by the crews to determine the scenario that best
suited each competitor. With the scores so close there was a lot of
jockying at the start. At that point any of the top 4 could win the
regatta. At the first windward mark, Griffith/Griffith had a slim lead over
Stout/Rosemont followed by Oberg/Jones with a slim lead over
Pline/Eldridge. Lots of surfing ensued down the first reach in the
freshening breeze, with Griffith/Griffith holding off Stout/Rosemont on
both reaches, but Pline/Eldridge getting the inside on Oberg/Jones by the
leeward mark.

The fleet split on the second beat with Pline/Eldridge getting the left
side of the course and the other three staying more right. With a little
better pressure and a few small lifts on the left Pline/Eldridge closed the
gap, eventually slipping around the windward mark in the lead followed by
Oberg, who made out very far right, Griffith and Stout. Postions remained
the same until the last beat when Stout made up some ground by going to the
better breeze on left side at the end of the leg to just squeek past
Griffith for a photo finish.


Skipper/Crew			#1      #2      #3      #4      Total
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Pline/Sherry Eldridge	3	5	.75	.75	 9.50
Lee Griffith/Lisa Griffith	2	3	2	4	11
Bob Oberg/Kristan Jones		.75	6	3	2	11.75
Lorie Stout/Sam Rosemont	4	4	4	3	15
John/Maggie Manderson		6	.75	5	10DNC	21.75
Dave Applegate/John Applegate	5	2	8	10DNC	25
Bob Coyle/			8	8	7	5	28
Darryl/Susan Waskow		7	7	6	10DNC	30
Brad Dunn/Diane Robinson-Dunn	9	9	9	10DNC	37