A few more friends join this year's Midwinters
By DAVE ELLIS
Published March 7, 2007
The 16-foot Fireball performance dinghy has been meeting at Davis Island Yacht Club for the Fireballs and Friends Midwinters for more than 40 years.
This year, race organizer Paul Leonard invited a few more small boats to share Upper Hillsboro Bay. With 79 boats, it resulted in the largest club event of the year, if the huge Optimist Dinghy fleets are discounted.
The Flying Scott was a natural choice, as its big regatta of the season was in St. Petersburg the following week. They attracted 26 teams to the Tampa event. Area sailors Fred and Fred Strammer, son steering, dad crewing, won. Jeff Linton with crew Andy and Fran Haywood placed second.
The Front Runner class attracted boats from several states, as did the 17-boat Interlake class. Designed in 1932 as a smaller version of the Olympic Star, the Interlake looks like an overgrown Snipe dinghy.
The long, lean "110" is a double-ended fin keelboat that was popular on Tampa Bay in the 1950s. The winner of all those races was Joshua Hill in a boat built in 1947.
The Windmills moved from St. Petersburg to Davis Island for more protected waters and convenient camping on the grounds. Twelve boats were dominated by Ethan and Trudy Bixby, who used a second place as their discard race. Davis Island junior sailor Reguli Granger crewed for the current national champ of the class, placing third.
Friday's race proved to be so windy that permanent buoys in the bay were used, with the start and finish at the club entrance channel. All of the powerboats were reserved for potential rescue work.
Only the Fireballs raced in the big breeze, with seven finishing, some after numerous swims. The Windmills agreed to race, but only as a practice. The two Tampa Bay area boats were the only Windmills to finish without capsizing. The other classes opted to stay ashore.
Saturday's breeze was strong but not as severe, with five races for each fleet. Sunday had swirling winds. For results, visit diyc.org.
THISTLE MIDWINTERS: St. Petersburg Yacht Club hosted the 52nd annual event last week. Elmer Richards has attended the past 50. A tribute to the sailor one evening may have been a reason he was late to get his boat in the water for racing Wednesday. A powerboat towed him to the starting area. Happily for him and his crew, the fleet was aggressive, resulting in restarts, so they just made it to the successful start.
About halfway up the first leg of the course, Richards' son turned around and asked, "Dad, do you know what the course is?" They were leading the 69-boat fleet with no idea where to go.
Principle race officer Carole Bardes was a hero. After two races, the fleet was congregating to start a third when she signaled for all to return to shore. Some grumbling was heard until halfway back when blasts of wind to near 30 mph struck the fleet. All returned safely.
Greg Fisher of Annapolis won. Paul Abdullah of Jacksonville was second and St. Petersburg's Robby Brown sailing with Patrick Wilson and Rob Britt as crew, third. For results, visit spyc.org.
J/24 MIDWINTERS: Davis Island YC was the venue for 32 J/24 keelboats Feb. 23-25. A variety of conditions greeted the competitive fleet from multiple states.
St. Petersburg sailor Robby Brown along with crew Sandy Scheda, Jim Traun, Rob Brits and Jason Chavez established a 12-point cushion while many competitors found themselves having to count high penalties for starting early. The winner of the small fleet of the Pan-American Games qualifier at the beginning of the week, Daniel Borrer, finished mid-fleet in the Midwinters after twice jumping the starting gun. For all results, visit www.diyc.org/results.asp.