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The J/111 fleet lines up for a start at the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta Annapolis, the class’s North American Championship. (Paul Todd/)
When the race committee hoisted its AP-over-A on the morning of the first day of racing at the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta in Annapolis, there was a collective sigh across the Annapolis YC’s dry sail lot. Yes, everyone was anxious to go racing after a year of tiptoe racing through the pandemic, but not everyone was keen to scuff off the rust in a 30-knot gale.
So, with coffees in hand, crews tinkered and mingled with friends. A few teams eventually sneaked out to practice in the harbor, but most of Rob Ruhlman’s crew went golfing instead. There was no good reason to go out and practice on their J/111, flogging sails and crew before their big-deal North American Championship. They hadn’t sailed since January, at the class’s winter championship in Key West, but they’d be ready, Ruhlman reasoned. Feeling ready and being ready, however, are two different things.
The one wrinkle they weren’t prepared for was the race committee’s use of a rolling three-minute starting sequence the following morning when starting signals finally got underway. The short countdown caught Ruhlman’s team off guard in the morning’s first race. Twenty-knot gusts only fueled the confusion.
“We had trouble getting used to the three-minute-start thing,” Ruhlman says. “I get it in Lasers, but with 37-footers?”
Without a good start in this class, Ruhlman says, it’s nearly impossible to get to the front. This would, of course, account for his Spaceman Spiff being sixth (of seven boats) in the first race of the regatta. Rust in the boathandling cog of the machine didn’t help.
“These boats are so even, and there are all top-notch guys that travel,” he says, “so there’s no room for mistakes.”
Peter Wagner’s team on Skeleton Key, trained in the big breeze of their hometown San Francisco Bay, were confident in the day’s chaotic blow and won the first races comfortably. They were able to get off the starting line clean and control their own race, Wagner says.
“That was pretty important because, with the shifts, things were changing quickly, and we had to be able to react to the changes as they happened.”
By the final race of the day, however, Ruhlman’s crew was in its groove. Their score line trended upward, with a second to close the day. Skeleton Key had its first stumble, hung out on the wrong side of a windshift and finishing fourth. “We got stuck a little too far left and couldn’t quite find a shift to come back,” Wagner says. “Our friends on Spaceman Spiff face-planted us at a critical moment, bouncing us back left and sealing our doom. That was a good move by them.”
Jose Fuentes’ Etchells Caramba won six of eight races, sailing in memory of past crewmember Geoff Ewenson. (Paul Todd/)
That fourth also narrowed the series to mere points between the top three boats, with Spaceman Spiff lurking in fourth…
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