Wave North Coast Championships

Aug 2-5, Put-in-Bay, Ohio
Nearly 20 Hobie Waves from all over the eastern half of the country invaded the beautiful little island of Put-in-Bay for the Wave North Coast Championships. Sailors came from North and South Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio and Illinois.
The regatta was hosted by Put-in-Bay Yacht Club and coincided with the I-LYA Bay Week Regatta, which has been noted as the largest fresh water regatta since the late 1800s.
The island is one of the shelf-islands in western Lake Erie in an area noted for its great sailing and is also known as the Walleye Capital of the World. While many resort island, such as this one, have a “hook” or a draw of some sort, i.e., Mackinac has its horses. Well, Put-in-Bay has antique cars.., hundreds of them.
Two of the local sailors have old cars – Dick and Betty Bliss have a 1929 Model A Ford Coupe, and Rick White and Mary Wells have a 1929 Model A Sedan, a 1929 Mercedes Gazelle, and their pride, a 1908 Model T Ford Speedster that is loaded with highly polished brass.
Every Sunday there is an antique car parade, where one can view over 100 cars all at one time and actually see history on wheels drive by.
The island also features tons of night spots with entertainment, wineries, and one of the tallest monuments in the USA – the Commodore Perry Monument as a peace memorial between the United States and Canada.

The Races
The wind was howling at 15-20 mph for most of the first day of the regatta and the seas were steep and close together, making for some tough sledding. Mike Fahle, who has only been a bride’s maid at the Nationals, showed he is ready to make a comeback after being out of t he class for a while. After 3 races on the first he held a slight lead with finishes of 5-1-1 over past-National Champ, Patrick Green, and past-North American and World Champ, Rick White, each tied with 10 points.
Day two had winds a bit lighter, but still blowing around 15 mph, yet the seas had subsided a bit. Fahle was struck with some bad luck. While checking out the course before the race his sail completely ripped horizontally. He was frantic as there was no way to sheet the sail in. He jury-rigged by hooking the mainsheet to a batten adjuster and limped back to port to change sails, hoping to make it back out and only lose one race score.
Patrick Green imploded after winning the first race, and had to settle for two 8th place finishes. Rick White also went awry with a 6-13-7. Meanwhile, Ray Matuszak put together some great races and ended up the day in a tie with Fahle, who had come back out and captured 4-2 finishes. Stan Woodruff started putting together some good finishes and moved into 3rd place overall.
On the last day the wind shifted 180 degrees from the previous days and lightened up. There was fairly good air at around 7 mph, but it was slowing dying and getting radically shifty. Matuszak seemingly lost his charmed life and could only muster an 8 and 6, but it still gave him 3rd spot overall.
Patrick Green really got it together for the last two races and did horizon jobs on the fleet which put him up to 2nd place overall, while Fahle hung on to get two second place finishes to win the regatta overall.

Mike Fahle picks up an additional trophy as the winner of the class with the most boats in the overall regatta.

Patrick Green get second place

The Wave Fleet was also awarded a trophy for being the largest class. Here most of the sailors hung were there to get in the picture. They had just come from a Wine and Cheese Party, as you might be able to tell.

RESULTS