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Ethan and Trudy Bixby of St. Petersburg dominated the Windmill National Championship regatta last weekend.
Winning three of the six races against the 30-boat fleet, the Bixbys were able to discard a third-place finish.
James Island Yacht Club in Charleston, S.C., was the venue, featuring varied wind conditions and strong tidal flow.
There are no Windmills sailing in the Charleston area. But the club agreed to play host to the nationals after being assured class support in the organizing of the regatta and the opportunity to have members of its junior team serve as crew.
Lisa Fath of Bradenton sailed her beautifully restored wooden boat with crew E.J. Howland.
Daniel Fontaine of Lakeland borrowed a boat and crew and rounded the first mark in the opening race in second place. Reality prevailed in their 18th-place performance. Lon Ethington and Meg Gimmi of St. Petersburg had their best finish in the light-air fifth race with sixth place. Ethington collected the Old Goat Award for the skipper over 50. He finished the highest (12th) without receiving a trophy. Boat builder and Olympic contender Arthur Anosov from St. Petersburg was among the skippers using a local junior sailor as crew. Young Lizzie Hazeltine enjoyed the final three races over the windy first three, as they took fourth - one point from third. St. Petersburg's Dave Ellis jumped back into the Windmill class after a 19-year absence.
Using as crew non-sailing nephew Daniel Parnell from the hills of Georgia, Ellis was busy trying to anticipate what a crew should do before each maneuver on the course and explain it in simple terms.
"It was totally confusing at first," said Parnell, 19. "But I sort of got the hang of it after a while."
There was some dismay on the Ellis boat when the first day was windy. But a victory on the second day in the fourth race in shifty 5-8 knots of breeze propelled him to third overall, one point out of second.
Ask just about any longtime small boat sailor from St. Petersburg and they will say, "I used to sail a Windmill."
John Jennings, Ed Sherman, Page Obenshain, Don and Ron Krippendorf, Rich LaGrua, Gene Hinkel and many others today sailed the boat years ago.
After all, it was designed in the early 1950s by Clearwater's Clark Mills to be the next step up from the Clearwater Pram that he previously designed. It turned out to be too much of a handful for the kids just getting out of Prams, but their folks loved it and often used the youngsters as crew.
Now there is strong renewed interest in the "poor man's boat." It's a craft that handles all conditions well and is known for its heavy wind speed. It is tippy enough to be interesting and lively yet quite controllable in the hands of a good sailor.
Ethan Bixby also sails Snipes and 505 dinghies successfully, having won the 505 worlds. He is the mainsail trimmer on a Greek Farr 40 and Roy Disney's 82-foot swing keel speedster, Pywacket. But Bixby really enjoys racing with his wife on the Windmill.
Now he has the national trophy to polish for a year.
KIEL RACEWEEK: Paige Railey continues her Laser Radial training in Europe.
"When we sailed out, I would look back and there would be thousands of boats sailing out," she wrote of Kiel Raceweek. "You could not see land since there were so many."
Railey's chance to win the regatta in her class evaporated when an event she was leading was canceled in mid race. She sailed well enough to finish as the runner-up. It is a measure of the sailor to find that Railey thinks she performed poorly to "only" finish second.
The next event is the Youth World Championship in Germany where Railey is the girls defending champ.