Journal of the Atlanta Yacht Club Volume 64, Issue 5 / Commemorative Edition

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TThis was the largest regatta ever hosted by the Atlanta Yacht Club . . . and we were blessed by Poseidon, Zeus, and Aeolus, who created perfect sailing conditions for the 153 Opti sailors, their coaches, and families that came together to compete for the 2014 USODA Southeastern Champion-ship on September 20 and 21. Planned and organized by Katrina Blauvelt and Tish Spearman over a 12 month period and supported by a “village of volunteers”, AYC’s beacon has never shone so brightly.

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USODA (The United States Optimist Dinghy Association) reports this was the largest South-eastern Championship during the past five years, it was not large by USODA standards. According to Ron Hopkins, PRO for our event and many other major Opti regattas, national and interna-tional events, can draw upwards to 400 to 450 boats. As it was, our limited sailing area was max out and the proposed race course had to be modi-fied in width at the request of the Coast Guard to permit a safe travel lane along the north shore for other watercraft to pass. The big draw for these and other USODA regional regattas is that com-petitors, who score in the top 25 percent, qualify for 2015 Team Trials in Miami next spring with an opportunity to earn a coveted spot on the US National Team.

Hosting an USODA Opti event at AYC was the brainchild of Katrina and Tish, who presented the idea last fall to then commodore Robert Mitchell and the Board of Governors to seek their interest. The idea was well received as a “good investment for the future of our club.” As stated by Robert, “Atlanta is a transient city and in 20 years many of these sailors may relo-cate here and remember the good times they had at AYC and want to join.” Based on this positive feedback, Katrina placed a bid to host the 2014 championship. Now you know the genesis of this happening!

Few can remember more perfect sailing condi-tions at AYC. The water was nearly at a summer high of 840 feet above sea level, temperatures were in the mid 80s with low humidity, and the wind blew – in fact in began blowing the day be-fore the regatta began and continued throughout the weekend and into the following week. Who can recall an easterly breeze between 6 to 16 mph on a Saturday followed by a westerly of 6 to 12 mph the very next day - and sunny both days? Thank you Aeolus!

Thanks to the diligent work of Debbie Dryden, who was responsible for promotion and press coverage, FOX News came to AYC on Friday to film an interview with Katrina, Lucy and Ellie Spearman, Colin and Josie Sherry and Dalyan Yet, which you can view at http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/26574610/local-youth-compete-in-sailboat-competition. Patsy Rausch’s photos of the event may be viewed at: USODA SE 2014 Photos by patsyrausch on Pho-tobucket. Access code is: USODA2014.

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Sailors, coaches, and their families began arriving on Friday morning and the three boat parking areas adjacent to the launching ramps, which were opened up for our guests, began fill-ing up. No time was wasted, boats were rigged and launched, and practice starts were conducted under the watchful eyes of team and personal coaches, while others spent the afternoon polish-ing their hulls or gathering around their coaches for final briefings about the intricacies of lake sail-ing. The Prime Team (a competitive travel team of which Blauvelt, Kraus, Sherry, Spear-man, and Yet sailors are members) the largest team participating, huddled with their coaches and talked about the importance of doing your homework before each race start; sighting the starting line, determining which end is favored, and sailing upwind to learn where the shifts may occur and which side of the first leg has more pressure.

Saturday morning began early with check-ins for competitors, coaches, and spectators. After a brief, but mandatory meeting for skippers, coach-es, and parents, boats were quickly launched with the help of the AYC Dolly-Duty Dads and a few anx-ious parents, then sent off. All skippers wore bar code tags that were scanned upon leaving shore and scanned again upon arrival back to shore, and those not properly checked in were quickly rounded up and accounted for by the Safety and QR Code Patrol headed up by David Blauvelt and Jim McCaffery. The Championship Fleet, consisting of 123 competitors, was divided into 4 flights, each flight displaying a different color ribbon from their sprits. They sailed in the open part of the lake, while the less experienced Green Fleet, consisting of 30 competitors, sailed in the cove under the watchful eye of Shelby Hatcher, a 5-time US National Y-Flyer Junior Champion and US Sailing Level 1 Instructor.

The Championship Fleet sailed a trapezoid race course with a reach leg finish. Marks were ad-justed to achieve a desired 35 to 45 minute time duration and five races were conducted back-to-back on Saturday. It was a competitive fleet and clearly obvious that the top sailors were all well trained in roll tacking, weight balance, and prop-er sail trim. Rule violators promptly did their turns, rarely losing a boat length in the process. Mark roundings were executed crisply with mini-mal chatter, and most thanked the RC boat upon finishing. It was an impressive sight and a posi-tive pre-curser to the future of our sport.

Sunday morning dawned still as a church mouse. PRO Hopkins postponed the start of Race 6. He was finally able to get a start at 11:15 am when the breeze filled in from the west, just like Means Davis had predicted 30 minutes earlier. Perhaps, we should give more credit to uncanny wisdom of a “chief judge.” The final race was completed in a building breeze and by 2:30 pm the massive re-turn to shore had begun. Katrina was out on the north dock with her binoculars calling out bow numbers as the Dolly-Duty Dads jumped into ac-tion retrieving pre-numbered dollies, while Car-lin Hodges checked the sailors in with his hand-held scanning device. The top 5 finishers were: Daven Subbiah, Pennisula Youth Sailing, Red-wood, CA., Boyd Bragg, Fishing Bay Yacht Club, Deltabay, VA., and Julia Johansson, Justin Callahan, and Berta Puig, all from Coral Reef Yacht Club, Miami, FL. Audry Foley from Coral Reef Yacht Club won the Sportsmanship Award and six year old James Folk, from AYC, was rec-ognized as the regatta’s youngest skipper. Sailing in the Championship Fleet were AYC skippers Timo Kraus, who was our top finisher, Carlyn Blauvelt, Evie Blauvelt, Ross Copenhaver, Dalyan Yet, Lucy Spearman, Colin Sherry, Ellie Spearman and Grace Hawkins.

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The purpose of the Green Fleet is to encour-age novice sailors. There are several distinct as-pects of the Green Fleet; first, the bottom skip-pers can be coached and second, all sailors receive participation medallions instead of placement trophies to keep them focused on improving their skills and having fun. If a Green Fleet sailor re-cently moved up to the Championship Fleet for this regatta, but has a tough time, he or she can rejoin the Green Fleet with an escort and the PRO is notified. Those who choose to rejoin the Green Fleet cannot move back up to the Championship Fleet during the same event.

The fleet was coached by AYC’s Shelby Hatch-er, a five time Y-Flyer Junior US National Cham-pion and Level 1 Sailing Instructor. She was as-sisted by Nick Haile, Virginia Parson and Kevin Guebert. Shelby is passionate about sail-ing and her enthusiasm is contagious. She says, “I love it when kids get it and are having fun in their boats. They get a huge smile on their face and that gleam in their eye, and you know they are hooked on sailing.”

The Green Fleet got off an impressive 10 quick windward-leeward races during the two-day event. Shelby’s goals were; “I hope that the kids not only have fun on the water, but take away the community aspect of the sport. Being on the water, learning to race and all the strategy that is involved is important, however, the connec-tions and the memories made are what they will treasure.”

We look forward to seeing our current Green Fleet sailors: Cole Bradley, Bales Brannon, James Folk, Sam Hawkins, and Josie Sher-ry move up to the Championship Fleet in the near future. This was the first regatta for Cole, Bales, and James.

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AYC could not have hosted this major event without the financial and in-kind support from:

Event Sponsors: By-the Lee Adaptive Sailing McLaughlin Opti Parts Private Bank of BuckheadSnipe Fleet 330 Thistle Fleet 48 Y-Flyer Fleet 1 KO Sailing Halo Water

Donors: Annapolis Performance Sailing Arby’s Beautycounter Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce Coral Reef Sailing Apparel Cox Enterprises, Inc. Gill North America, Ltd. Henry’s Louisiana Grill Jacksonville University Sailing Team Motorola Musto.com Sailing Specialties Sailor Bags The Home Depot Trade Winds Distribution, LLC Wahoo Docks

Supporters: Means Davis Dryden Communications Barry Hasty and Chase Adams Don and Marianne Hackbarth Carlin and Amanda Hodges Jim and Sue McCaffrey Robert Mitchell MOJO Productions, Inc.

Lastly a huge thanks to the 100 plus volunteers and friends of AYC:

Means “Chief Judge” Davis and trusty right-hand man Carl Owens, for expertly guiding us through the intricacies of this event and assem-bling a crack team of Judges and Race Committee members, who rocked big time! Peggy Davis for her sage support and kitchen counsel. Commodore, Ian Elliott,who fearlessly served on RC, Vice Commodore, Don Hackbarth, RC and chief cheerleader, and Rear Commodore, Tom Henderson, RC and PR supporter.

Ron Hopkins, PRO from Rhode Island, and his rock solid race committee team: Larry Bull, Troy Davis, Ian Elliott, Rita Fullick, Steve Guebert, Don Hackbarth, Tom Hender-son, Jorrit Kraus, Tripper Mansfield, Ed Marks, Robert Mitchell, Art Molitor, Larry Snyder, Beth and Bill Tumlin, and Orren Williams.

Chris Payne: Scoring Chairman.

Lavon and Nile Hatcher: Chief Kitchen Chefs and all around rock stars! Have we ever had so much (1,284 meals, to be exact) amazing food? Don’t think so!

Mary Williams: Spectacular Sous Chef - who helped prep, cook, serve and clean up all 1,284 meals with a smile! Catering All-Stars, including our hot dog helpers: Courtney and Lee Brad-ley, Susan Carlson, Marji Cyrul, Privateer Yacht Club and former AYC member, Peggy Davis, Beth Forsyth, Shirley Gore, Rose

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Haisty, Liz Henderson, Tish Jennings, Te-resa Kibler, who also manned our Sibling Ac-tivity Workshop, which was a huge hit, Caroline and John Lank, Gayle McLean, the McNeil Family, Midge Schulz, Orie Wade, who also managed the cleanup, and Jeannie Wright.

Mindy and Mark Sherry: Parent Cocktail Par-ty hosts with the most, Social Media Queen and Facilities Manager, Chief Parking and Dolly-Duty Dads and friends (also trash-tastic cleanup crew): Josh Brannon, Kathy Bronaugh, Diego Carvajal, Todd Coppenhaver, Jim Harris, CYC-NC, Clint Hodges, David Huck, Greg and William Kibler, Martina Kraus, Chris and Jim McCaffrey, Brian Pennell,SC, Cal-vin Rausch, and Avery Ross.

Jeffrey “Mix it Up” Martinroe: Chief Peach Margarita Bartender. Debbie Dryden: Press Officer Extraordinaire – amazing coverage in the AJC, on Fox 5 and in the Cherokee Tribune!

Alan Thompson: Perfect Program Director, Designer and Print Manager.

Dawn and Chip Hawkins: Cocktail Party co-hosts with the most, and Finance Manager!

Jennifer Garrett: Who chaired an amazingly complex registration process with ease and grace and her Registration Team: Tammy Carvajal, Sherri Coppenhaver, Ozben Iyigun-Yet, Kitza Muhlhausen, Julie Plants, Diana St. Armand, and Beth Tumlin. Sue and Jim McCaffrey: Decorating Darling, Housing, and QR Safety Code Master

Todd Coppenhaver: Camping Coordinator and Go-To / Fix-it-Man.

Kathy Bronaugh: Woman on Wheels and Woman of the Hour. From shuttling our judges to and from the airport, to directing traffic and hand-decorating awards - Kathy did it all!

Patsy Rausch: Event photographer and AV wiz-ard.

Kevin Snyder: for the amazing drone and its incredible footage. Look for a video link soon on-line.

Nancy Parson: Green Fleet Paparazzi.

John Muhlhausen: Event reporter for Opti-News and Scuttlebutt.

Green Fleet Dream Team: Led by Coach Shelby Hatcher, assisted by Kevin Guebert, Nick Haile and Virginia Parson. Launching and Safety Boats: Cas and Steve Bradley, Mike Carlson, also charter boats co-ordinator, and Jay Smith (CYC-NC).

Bruno Mello: Our wonderful “Floater” coach and bike messenger.

First Aid: Amanda and Carlin Hodges, Greg Kibler, who had no serious customers thanks to our safety crew!

David Blauvelt: Safety and QR Code Engineer.

Safety Team: Katrina Blauvelt, Lee Bradley, Mike Carlson, Jim “QR Code” McCaffrey,

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Tom Schmitt, Alan Thompson, Pete Tisch-ner, and Guran Yet.

Wonderful Boat Donors: David Blauvelt, Bill Tumlin, Jim McCaffrey, Robert Mitchell, Pete Tischner, and Gordon Thompson.

Marianne Hackbarth: beautifully hand craft-ed and sewed our brightly colored flight flags.

Bebe, Davis, Hackbarth, Hodges, Bliss Jones, Marks, McCaffrey, Parson, Alan Thompson, Orren Williams and Whitfield families for graciously hosting our visiting judges and officials in their homes and cabins.

Patsy Rausch, John Muhlhausen, and Nan-cy Parson, contributing photographers to this special issue of Scuttlebutt. Snipe, Thistle and Y-Fleets for their generous support and wonderful boat displays!

...and all our families and our AYC Opti Sailors!

If I inadvertently omitted anyone who helped, please accept my sincere apologies and let me know.

Katrina and Tish - AYC is so very proud and honored to have assisted you, and we are grateful for your hard and dedicated work in making this a legendary Club event. I feel confident AYC will shine brightly in the hearts of all who visited us on September 20 and 21, and that they will think of us again should they find themselves in need of a sailing home in Atlanta.

As I walked down to the Point at sunset that Sun-day evening of the regatta and marveled at the beauty of the majestic sky reflecting in the water, and the peacefulness of the moment, I felt I had participated in something very special.

John Muhlhausen, editor Scuttlebutt