TAYC  Penguin Frostbite and Atlantic Coast Championship  2008

Out of the talented group of sailors who competed in and ran the TAYC Frostbite sailed on the beautiful, sunny first day of November emerged two new rock stars.

One was Charlie Krafft who proved that his steadily improving scores of recent regattas have been no fluke. He single handed his very old and now somewhat questionable (one of the rails is seriously in need of epoxy) Austin, Wooden Bucket to a very convincing win; a win not totally explained as one competitor graciously commented,  by the old boat weight advantage. Charlie had outstanding starts and simply never made mistakes. He limited his tacks in the light air and stayed with the serious competition, He was never further behind than third at the weather mark and showed excellent speed downwind.

That competition included Star star and three time International Champion  John McCausland sailing in his first regatta since last year with his daughter Allie and,”if you don’t win the first race you’ll do well in the regatta”, Sandy McAllister sailing with regular crew Kara Spector. This year’s International Champs Mike and Rachel Hecky also made the trip down from New Jersey. But this outstanding competition were so outgunned they raced for second place rather than provide a serious challenge to Charlie.

The rest of us could only cruise and watch. Scott Williamson and Aubrey Barringer were disabled by a broken rudder at the start of the first race but still managed a sixth. Scott is another sailor who has shown outstanding ability in recent regattas.

Brothers Tom and Doug Campbell had some great moments but were handicapped by some elementary laws of physics. Something about a boat at rest, etc.

On a personal note crew Del Walter has fortunately defied some of those laws by growing up but not out - yet. I really hope he just stops at this point as he is, quite simply, one of the best in the business.

Bill Lane loaned his boat to son Matt who sailed with Chris Gibbs and Jeff Cox brought Lindsay Clemmer to sail in Dad David’s boat.  Finally Monty Baker brought a new crew. Lisa Stettler. Welcome to the Penguin fleet Lisa.

The other rock star and as far as everyone in the Penguin class is concerned the now permanent Penguin PRO, was Todd Kana and his stellar race committee. This was the second near perfect regatta Todd has run for the class. Todd got five races off with no waiting and no fuss. He kept the lines and courses square and the length appropriate for the light air conditions. Somehow no race took longer than thirty five minutes and we never waited more than 10 minutes between races. The lines were always square at the three minute gun. And to cap off a beautiful fall day ten minutes after the fleet hit the docks the Tred Avon became almost totally slick. Todd must have a direct link to the weather gods because you can’t pay for planning like that.

Thanks to TAYC and Commodore Linda Laramy for a perfect regatta capped off with some perfectly delicious Maryland Crab soup at the awards ceremony. This is Linda’s last regatta and congratulations for what has been a very good season for Penguins at TAYC.