Snipe DickC Cup

Annapolis, MD, USA, August 4, 2024.

The Second Annual DickC Cup was again a huge success, reuniting Snipe Alumni with current fleet members and new-to-the-Snipe sailors with fifteen teams comprising the A/B college-style regatta (15 “A” and 15 “B”) on August 3-4, 2024. Over the weekend, 16 races were completed on the course in the Severn River right off the Severn Sailing Association in a range of wind conditions that tested new and experienced teams alike.

Saturday started out with a light westerly breeze, but quickly, as forecasted, shifted around to the south, increasing to a steady 20 knots by the afternoon. Who says there is no wind in Annapolis in August? These conditions were quite challenging with short steep chop that went along with the breeze and was exacerbated by the typical pleasure boat wake. Due to the conditions, the last several rotations were executed with double triangle courses. There was a real emphasis on high wind boat handling upwind and quickly getting on a plane around the weather mark.

Sunday was much lighter with 5-8 knots from the west, but with cloudy conditions there were few pleasure boats out which kept the course in the river clear, providing interesting and shifty lake-like conditions. After one rotation and a total of 4 races, the wind shut off and the race committee called it a day; unfortunately we ran out of time before the breeze finally filled from the south.

Ultimately, consistency ruled the weekend as is very typical with college-style regattas with many shorter races that do not include a discard. After 16 races only 13 points separated the top three spots on the overall scoresheet with the team of Bradley Adam/Thomas Walker (A) and Chase Cooper/Katherine Jones (B) taking the top overall spot, Robert Vann/Lydia McPherson (A) and Connor Bluin/Darby Capellin (B) in second and Rob Ramirez/Bryan Stout (A) and Alfonso Bringas/Kate Shermock (A) in third. Additionally, the A Teams were scored as the SSA Snipe Summer Series.

Snipe Alumni this year included the team of Steve Callison and Maureen Mitchell, Hal Gilreath sailing with super crew Kim Couranz, Jonathan Bartlett and Annie Bartlett (DickC’s son and grandaughter) and in the “new and old” category Mike and sons Kyle and Garrett Mergenthaller who just formed an insto-fleet in Charlotte by purchasing two boats and a double trailer made their return to the Snipe class. The new Snipe sailors included many former college sailors and area sailing coaches and first time racing in the Snipe Eliza Virgin crewing for her dad Greg.

A big thanks to the PRO John White who kept things moving and his team making sure we were all safe in the breeze.

Ted Morgan on the water photos: https://tedmorganphotography.zenfolio.com/p274103338

Awards Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/EvVjGhwtuFHkJsgo9

Results:

About the DickC Cup

The regatta honors Richard C “DickC” Bartlett, an original member of both Severn Sailing Association and the local Snipe Fleet 532 who celebrated his 100th birthday in 2022 just before his passing. DickC was always about getting new sailors into the Snipe and helped build the fleet to become the go -to powerhouse fleet at SSA and nationally in the Snipe Class. We thought it was appropriate to create an A/B college style event that honored his many years of supporting the Snipe Fleet by bringing the Snipe to both those who are new to the boat as well as to reunite some Snipe “Alumni” with the fleet by pairing them with a current Snipe sailor, and of course we could not resist the punny regatta name. The local paper, The Capital, did a nice article on DickC’s 100 years and is worth a read: https://www.capitalgazette.com/news/ac-cn-richard-bartlett-100th-birthday-celebration-20220322-rlgtejot3zb3bngdcg2kjbj56i-story.html