2007 Halloween Classic

Mohican Sailing Club, Mansfield OH

Oct. 13-14

It is hard to let go of the sailing season.  2007 has been a great year for the Jet Class in Ohio.  The new fleet at Hoover hosted a wonderful first time every Jet regatta, the Buckeye Blast,  the Chili Bowl at Edgewater was maybe the best attended one yet and the Halloween Classic was a great season closer.

The weather was fine, sunny for the most part, starting off Saturday morning with some real frost but warming to maybe 60 deg.  The wind was fall like, 0 to 10 knots but good enough for four races on Saturday and a one laper on Sunday in 0 to 3 knots.

Twenty boats were on the line, two from out of state, Marty and Kim Schilke from Indiana, and a  Brent from someplace on the east coast.  Two boats were down from the Cleveland area, Dave and Sue Michos of Edgewater and Scott Sanders from Whiskey Island. Scott had maybe the most fun of anyone at the regatta.  He had so many people that wanted to sail that he had three on board for the first race and a another crew that he hadn’t seen in 16 years for crew on Sunday. We had three, count ‘em, three Parker crews in boats: Bryan and Tiffany sailed #1135, Tim and Seth sailed my nephew Paul’s #324 and Dick and Debbie sailed Nate Irelands #1134.  Nate had to work this weekend in Chicago but made time to deliver and rig his boat for the Parkers so they could join us.  Nate, you are my hero.

On the water Bridget Ireland with faithful crew Joe Minerd picked up where they left off at the Buckeye Blast, blasting their way past everybody, and I mean everybody, to win the first race. My sister Barb led this race around the first turn with Ivan Baker and the FitzGibbons in hot pursuit.  At the end Wes Blazer and Ryan Kyle along with Bryan and Tiffany Parker came from deep in the fleet to finish fouth and fifth, (in the opposite order.) 

Nick Turney with Ryanne Gallagher muscled their way through the fleet for a solid second in race two, close on the heals of Brent and Ben who rebounded from the pounding they suffered in race one.  Fourth through sixth were measured in feet with Ivan Baker and Becky Young holding off Paul Joudrey and Josh for fifth.

Race Three was my wife Carol’s turn to push Ben and Brent around.  Dick and Debbie Parker began to re-discover their Jet-14 skills moving up for their first top ten finish of the series.

Race four was to be the last race on Saturday, three general recalls washed over that fleet as the wind shifted around and around.  When we finally go a start off the Michos’s hit their stride and never looked back.  Mike and Jon Chambers got bumped into so many times during the aborted starts that they sailed like scared rabbits the rest of the day to their best finish. 

In at the Club house the grill was fired up with  steak and chicken  served up with many desserts until no one could easily get out of their chairs.  And that was just a warm up for Sunday morning and the He-Man Breakfast.  It was a fight to the finish but the griddle won again.  No one was left standing.  This turned out to be Ben and Brent salvation as only with the fleet in this condition were they able to shake off the dilatory effects of Saturdays racing and return to their winning form.

Thank you again to Denny Dieball for taking his weekend again to drive down and run our races for us, first rate as always.  Thank you also to every Mohican member that volunteered their time and helped with everything all weekend long.  And my biggest thank you again to all our guests that took the time and made the journey to Mohican to spend their weekend with us.

We’ll try and do it all again next year.

Marion Zaugg

Results Posted 10/22/07

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