Island Fever in South Beach
John Tennyson, South Beach YC Island Fever Midwinter Series chair, says that each fall, after the Wind Machine has switched off, sailors are so desperate to race that they’ll believe anything — especially the idea that there will eventually be enough wind if they just show up and wait long enough. This sure sounds like what happened February 22: sunny skies and a ripple o’ breeze to start, advancing to mild rollers, cloud cover and bluster brewing.
On the course, Carter Ott was walking away with a string of firsts in Non-Spinnaker Division. A newer member at South Beach, his Yankee Dolphin 24 picks up and goes. “I was looking to move Duckling up to South Beach Harbor. The welcome experienced at SBYC — the generosity, Corinthian spirit, love for their club and interest in bettering it, as well as location, made membership there a no-brainer for me.”
Still getting in sync with the boat, he raced Duckling once in the South Bay about a year ago and counts fewer than 10 times being on the water for an extended time: “I’ve been busy restoring her at the dock. I entered the series as a shakedown for Duckling. As for sailing solo, that’s possibly out of nostalgia, remembering my time as a junior in Sabots and Lasers.”
He says February brought a welcome break with enough wind to “make it a bit spicy without the ripping currents we experienced in the first two months. For the non-spin class, just trying to finish November and December before the race committee called it — against significant current, in light wind, without a spinnaker — was extremely challenging.”
The Spinnaker PHRF >150 division was trailing Huge, a Catalina 30. “As for our first-place standing at this point, it’s not really so much our skill, but that ‘we showed up,'” says Jay Moore. “Winter racing is such a grab bag. In all the multiple club midwinters I’ve raced this season, more than half have not had a scored finish due to lack of wind and too much tide: If you show up and can finish a race, your odds of a good result are huge (tongue in cheek).”
In February’s race, Huge’s crew count was eight. “There were two keel newbies (also their first time racing), the person on the bow was brand new in that role (he races J/105s, so is a great sailor), and two hadn’t raced on Huge for several months.”