North American Etchells Class the boat the fleets the people the racing

Beckman takes Great Lakes

Recap of 2009 Great Lakes Regatta: September 12-13, 2009

Rochester Yacht Club was a superb host to a small but very talented fleet for the 2009 Great Lakes Regatta. Sailors received great hospitality, excellent committee work and a challenging venue. The yacht club is a "sailors" club with a great facility. Getting to the race course takes only 15 minutes, and the support staff, from the race committee to the yacht club manager and employees, were helpful and enthusiastic.


Most of the boats in attendance were using the Great Lakes as a tune up for the North American Championship which being held the following week in Toronto. Saturday saw moderate to light and shifty conditions. Boat speed was at a premium. Dirk Kneulman had Cruel Jane in gear early and led the way around the course. Marvin Beckman finished second and he must have been comfortable with that position since he seemed to finish there nearly every race of the series.

Marvin Beckman won the event with some very consistent and skillful sailing. Always near the top, Marvin and his team were the boat to beat. Team Burton were in the hunt on Saturday. They must have done their homework Saturday night because they came out on Sunday and led at every mark, showing a great combination of boat speed and smarts in the shifty conditions. Their strong showing Sunday moved them into second overall. Shannon Bush sailed a very solid regatta, always challenging the leaders and ended up third. Skip Shumway, a relative newcomer to the Etchells Class--and the regatta host--gave us all instructions on Saturday--where to find things, where the party would be and which way to go on the race course. Skip ended the day in second, right on Marvin's heels, and then made sure everyone was well taken care of with plenty of cold beer and a great buffet at the club. Making sure everyone had a great time may have finally taken a bit of a toll on Skip as he finally slipped back a bit in the standings on Sunday.


Rochester Yacht Club will hopefully become a regular stop on the Etchells circuit. Freshwater sailing at a first-class facility with great support and committee work.

 

 

 

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