Jacksonville Regatta
Alan Perkins does it again
by Martin Gray, Commodore JMYC

The Comfort Suits Hotel in St. Augustine was the venue for the EC-12 Jacksonville Model Yacht Club’s Regatta. The skippers meeting was called to order by RD Marting Gray at 8:45am with 27 Skippers in attendance including 3 Lady skippers. After introducing the race staff as follows: Starting/finishing line and marks observer Robbie Susan, rescue boat and mark observer Garrett Witzel, Judge Ken Morrison; score keeper Trish Gray. The sailing instructions were reviewed with Ken Morrison answering questions regarding sailing rules. The seeding list was used to divide the fleet into A and B fleets for the P/R format. Pins were handed out to all A fleet skippers with 15 boats starting in both fleets.

Dick Hedderick the Florida EC-12 Association secretary mentioned the Annual Meeting was scheduled for 5:00pm in the hotel. Joe Walter the EC-12 Class secretary ended the meeting by playing the Nation Anthem from his iPhone and amplifier. With the wind from the NW at 3-5 Mph and a beautiful sunny day with Temp in the High 70s we began the races. The start line for the first 3 heats was located at the far right hand end of the hotel grounds. Alan Perkins from the gun showed he was on his game and scored a total of 4 Pts with two bullets and a 2nd after three heats followed by Dick Hedderick with 10 Pts. Steve Pfeil 15 Pts, Joe Walter with 17 Pts including a bullet in heat 2 and Gerhard Kelter with 18 points were all very closely matched before the wind shifted to the East at 1-5 Mph,

The RD moved the course to the far left side of the pond. With just a minor change to the buoys and the course board reset, heats 4 to 6 continued with Alan Perkins pulling away from the pack with two more bullets and a 9th place while Steve Pfeil with 27 Pts closed in on Dick Hedderick with 24 Pts lying second. Meanwhile Joe Walter and Gerhard Kelter were fighting it out in 4th and 5th place respectively.

Further down the field Bob Greer, Ricky Gerry, Jim Kaighlin, Scott Vernon were showing flashes of brilliance in their varied finishing positions along with Fred Pheil, Jack Ward and Jack Wubbe. Brenda Pardee was also fighting hard to stay in the A fleet and was showing she could sail hard when under pressure from the guys. Dan Pearce experience radio failure all morning with his boat heading for the far shore and Garrett, our rescue boat driver, in hot pursuit each time.

After Lunch with the wind forecast to move to the SE we set a new course as the wind settled into the SE at 3-7 Mph with the odd gust to 10 Mph. Steve Pfeil had a bullet in the 7th heat with his dad, Fred, taking 2nd place and Ricky Gerry 3rd followed by Bob Greer in 4th and Joe Walter in 5th. Alan Perkins continued as he left off and soon scored two more bullets for a total day-1 score of 24 Pts. Steve Pfeil sailed hard all afternoon and managed to overtake Dick Hedderick to complete day-1 with 41 followed by Joe Walter on 49 and Dick Hedderick on 50.Gerhard Kelter managed to maintain 5th spot with 52 pts and Bob Greer on 56 pts.

We managed to complete the last race of the day by 15:45. Again 1956 experience Radio failure and had to be rescued again.

Dinner Saturday night was at Donovan's Irish Pub where the full complement of skippers and guests showed up and forced the restaurant staff to scramble up more tables and chairs. It was John Bottensek's and Mary Michael's (that's Joe Walter's daughter) birthday. Joe brought a large birthday cake and after singing the traditional song, everyone got a slice of cake for desert.

Sunday morning the wind was very light 0-3 Mph it proved to be a real challenge for the skippers and the race staff. The wind was out of the South which meant it had to go around and over the 6 story hotel to get down to the lake. With this boomerang shaped lake, it meant we had light and swirling winds coming from two main directions. We started heat 10 from the right hand side course and Alan Perkins manged to score a bullet followed by Jon Luscomb 2nd and Ricky Gerry 3rd. Joe Walter and Steve Pfeil were also in the front runners.

We moved the course again in the hopes of getting a better beat to windward but with the swirling wind many skippers found the course very challenging. Dick Hedderick pulled a pair of bullets and a 2nd place out of the hat as we moved the course again to the left hand side of the pond. Finding some consistency was the key during these trying southerly swirling light wind conditions. Alan Perkins had done enough in the early heats to distance himself from the rest of the fleet with 27 Pts, while Dick Hedderick had a DSQ in the last race but managed to move back to 2nd place overall with 46 Pts. Steve Pfeil and Joe Walter closed up on each other with just one point between them at 51 and 52 respectivly. Gerhard Kelter finished in 5th place with a final score of 57 Pts.Ricky Gerry managed to score a bullet in the final race and remarked on how well he sailed on Sunday…if only we could move the hands of time…! Dan and his 1956 EC-12 spent could not overcome his radio troubles.

Many thanks to all the staff. Robbie Susan for tirelessly watching buoys and start/finish lines with me and to my wife Trish for managing to keep the score to the bitter end. To Garrett for all the boat rescuing necessary to clear the race course and of course Ken Morrison for his passion and love of the sport and kept a keen eye on all races noting each and every foul and his ruling in the last race of the day where Dick Hedderick was DSQed. My thanks to all who helped make this event the success it was, and to all the skippers who graced our event by their participation and good humour.

Results

   
1 Alan Perkins 14 27  
2 Richard Hedderick 38 46  
3 Steve Pfeil 110 51  
4 Joe Walter 24 52  
5 Gerhard Kelter 18 57  
6 Bob Greer 2100 58  
7 Rick Gerry 63 60  
8 Jim Kaighin 20 78  
9 Jack Ward 01 85  
10 Fred Pfeil 15 98  
11 Jack Wubbe 123 114  
12 Scott Vernon 80 117  
13 Jon Luscomb 45 119  
14 Brenda Pardee 12 135  
15 John Steacy 57 150  
16 Dick Reinke 36 166  
17 George Balaschak 2200 181  
18 Tom Germer 34 193  
19 Liz Perkins 40 195  
20 John Santoro 66 199  
21 Don Thompson 52 200  
22 Tom Phillips 65 211  
23 Roman Cibirka 140 227  
24 Becky Gerry 44 227.6  
25 Jim Pardee 72 240  
26 Jeff Witzel 83 241  
27 Dan Pearce 56 283  

 

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Also videos are posted on the EC12 Disscussion site here.