- Local News for Southern Sailors - April 2002 Next Story
Conquistadors take over Charlotte Harbor
By Doran Cushing
The Florida peninsula
has a long history of exploration and conquest by the Spaniards some 500 years ago. Commemorating that time of discovery, the ninth annual Conquistador Cup Regatta has an armada of sailors searching for wind and discovering the vagaries of nature.
Sportboats and spinnakers in the wild finish of the distance race.Doran Cushing photos 
Fifty-two boats—mostly non-spinnaker and non-high tech—came together on Charlotte Harbor March 9-10 for some buoy racing and a reverse start distance race..."Swedish start" in the vernacular of this race committee. The southwest Florida event near Punta Gorda is one of largest in the region and brings out a diverse fleet of boats and skippers. One light air mark rounding had a spiffy blue-hulled 40-footer monster surrounded by comparably scruffy-looking day sailers. It took a while for the "baby ducks" to escape from the momma duck's huge wind shadow.
But serious fun seems to be the flavor of this event. The 19 spinnaker boats do their thing...some serious, others less so. And the non-spinners had their own course around the buoys and had their own battles and frustrations in the predominant light air conditions. The breeze never reached eight knots for the two planned races on day one (only one was completed). Day two started fine with the smaller, higher-rated boats headed up the distance course in a perfect breeze, only to have it die down as the last-starting spinnaker boats left the line in pursuit.
There were no secrets to the strategy. Sail to where you see wind, or where you think you can reach what little wind there was, or where you think the wind will fill. When the breeze finally came back from the north late in the distance race, it was a drag race to the finish for two Melges 24s—Hurricane and Gone Mad—and the SR 27 Blaze. They had used up the handicap differences at the reverse start, and it came down to whoever got to the finish first won.
Bill Rogner's Hurricane trailed by maybe 30 yards but was closing fast, tight reaching with the chute. Gone Mad and Blaze were less than three boatlengths apart, power reaching with jibs. In synch, chutes went up on the first two racers as now the three boats were within overlaps. Gone Mad powered up and accelerated ahead of Blaze by a bow with Hurricane on the SR's hip.
|
What a time for a massive header, followed by a hole in the wind! With less than 1/4-mile to the finish, all three boats stood up and flogged the chutes as crew scrambled to douse one sail and set another. Blaze found the clean air first and powered to the finish. Paired with the win on day one, Bill Johnsen's team aboard the recently modified SR 27 took the overall honors. Johnsen himself was crowned with a conquistador's helmet, feather plumes and all. As part of the Conquistador Cup tradition, a photo of Blaze will emblazon the regatta T-shirts next year.
What paid off? "Going to the far shore...that's where the sea breeze filled from," Johnsen said, giving credit to his tactician Tim Miller.
The win was the first for the SR 27 since Johnsen added a bowsprit and went to a masthead asymmetrical kite.
"We're still having some learning curve problems," Johnsen said. "Since we put the new chute on the boat, it's changed. The boat's more fun!"
Like many of the competitors, George Buckingham of Goshen, IN, raved about the event. Winning the top non-spinnaker division with his J/105 Learning To Fly didn't hurt.
"We're only "down here nine weeks of the year," Buckingham said. "It's my third year at this regatta, and I like the reverse start. You know where you stand (at the finish)."
Despite the narrow loss, Gone Mad skipper John Hyatt of Fort Myers also praised the event.
"It's a pretty good balance of social and racing," Hyatt said. "It's nice to have a party after racing Saturday and Sunday."
Commenting on the conditions, Hyatt added, "It was so patchy both days. Not only pretty shifty, but you also had to be looking to see where the next patch was."
You'd had to work to try to find something negative about the event. There were those dumb-ass fisherpeople (men and women) in a cheapo small boat who anchored next to the turning mark in the distance race. Not only did they refuse to move when a polite suggestion was put forth by a race official, they also cautioned the approaching boats about their lines in the water with threats of legal action if anything happened. They did eventually move after several of the leaders had to sail around the mark, boat, and lines in very light air. Maybe the Darwin theory will take care of those folks...
|