That was John Geiger trapping and John Peil skippering. Start was a tight spin reach. Notice the water. Very unusual...aftermath of TS Lee. They had to open 75% of the Conowingo Dam's floodgates on the Bay's main tributary (Susquehanna River) leading to a lot of run off and debris earlier in the week.

Yeah I was just kidding, I can't afford a used F20c. Plus Westriver has super shallow water, there would be some broken/nicked/damaged expensive boards. F18 has the largest fleet size in NA, that is the class that makes sense to get into. Mischa can beat the N20's in a F18, so clearly the boat is "fast enough".

Sam,

My guess is you have not seen the new boards on the F18's. The one's on the new mk2 are over 6' tall, much more draft than the F20c since the F20c curve under the boat.

I stood next to JC's new boards on friday night. They are just as tall as I am.

Yeah, I haven't seen the super new high aspect ratio boards. I've seen the Wildcat boards and they didn't scare me too much. I was probably going with an older boat (Tiger/Capricorn/Infusion Mk1) that has shorter foils anyway. It will take 2 years for me to get to the level of sailing where I need a new boat anyway. Plus if the foils are the problem, I can build a set in my shop, but I doubt those are going to hold me back much if at all.

Hey I have to get Renee a step ladder to be able the operate the boards.

Haha

The Nass Race is a awesome race .... one of the first years that some "Beach Cats" raced in it there was approximently 250 monomarans under spinnacker racing down the Chesapeake Bay to TAYC/Oxford. By the time we started it looked like a forest in front of us ... and all the different colored spinnackes was a memory for a lifetime ...

And you may "bitch" at him ... but it was Mr Mark Schnieder who did all the work and arranged for a offical "Beach Cat Class" to be included in the event after Mark and I on his Tornado in Sept 2000 "un-offically" did the race on a "last minute lark" (we decided to do the race at approximently 3:00pm on Friday since we had no other racing that weekend !!! and we wanted to go to the PARTY !!!!)... after reaching TAYC we parked his Tornado on the beach by the "food" tent ... we discovered many sailors in the food line that had sailed beach cats and were happy to see us there ...

For the first three years it was Mark on his Tornado .... Roger (from Gailsville) on his Supercat 22 .... and me on my P19MX ...

Congrats on the cover !!!!! It's nice to see you guys keeping it going !!!!

Harry
H18Mag/P19MX

This has certainly turned into one of the high points for beach cat sailing on the Chesapeake. Closest thing to the C-100 of days gone by.

The pic on the cover is John and John. John Peil has said he thought the picture boat was following them because they were sure they were going to capsize! The John's also have a great pic after the Hammond race back on Sunday, with John Peil's nice face wound. They had an interesting time of it that day...

After slogging out of the West River and dodging an unbelievable amount of crap in the Bay (logs, whole tree trunks, tires on rims, boards, buckets, and a 55 gallon plastic drum floating vertically just below the surface, just to name some of it) we got to the starting area on time, only to flub it by misreading where we were in the counts and heading off to the side to answer nature's call. Result - late to the start two years in a row! We ran the rum line along the marks down the Bay, shifting gears and playing the boat to drive up/head down on the course as needed. By the time we got into the Choptank only the 18HT (singlehand) was in front of us, and of course the Seacart. Upwind in the Choptank was a bit of challenge, and the two PHRF A0 boats that we had easily dispatched out in the Bay became upwind machines that ground us down got back by us, as the wind got a little up and down allowing only occasional trapping. The Seacart was first over the line, then the two A0 boats split by the 18HT, then us. Given that the two A0 boats started 10 minutes before us, and the Seacart started 5 minutes before us, it wasn't too bad of a finish. As the 18HT was singlehanded we corrected over for the win.

The cool thing about finishing up front in this race is that you get to watch the rest of the 100+ boats racing up the Choptank to the finish. Even if I didn't do the race I'd be tempted to drive there just to watch the finish.

Great party as usual at TAYC, and nice to walk the docks and check out the bigger multis, grab some drinks, shoot the breeze.

The Hammond race back the next day had more wind, as it picked up overnight still blowing from the Northeast. The Start of the Hammond is a fun affair, because once again the beach cats start in the back, but the first mark comes just as we start to really run down the bigger boats. A bit of pucker factor as you dodge some of the bigger stuff that may or may not feel like they need to watch the rules when you're around. A lot of wild reaching (spin and jib), a long upwind, then downwind spin run to get to the mouth of the Choptank to drive upwind in the Bay all the Way to the finish near Poplar Island. We had our usual cluster in the Choptank, starting out with our spinsheets getting fouled as went to launch the kite at the start - instant back of the pack at the start again... We were neck and neck with the Johns and Kris turning up the Bay, but we stretched out on that leg (upwind double trapped big waves looking for logs) to get line honors. Kris on his F-16 got us by 19 seconds corrected (about 12 seconds on the water) for the win. Second year in a row for us taking line honors and getting caught by an F-16...

Last picture is your 12 seconds

that's a lot of "iced tea"...

I think Alec needed only 19 secs to finish it .

$20 dollar pitchers baby!

What a deal... cough,cough. The Triple Threat drink program works much better and is WAY more economical.

p.s. Did they give any "check in failure" penalties this year? Yeah, I'm still bitter.