2007 Irey Memorial Regatta

Dave grew up at West River sailing in Penguins and Thistles and after a brief stint in big boats in the early 70's returned to the Jet-14 Class only to become president and commodore of West River Sailing Club. He was a soft spoken man who knew how to sail a  jet at West River like nobody's business. His forte was light air and he won the Parramore more years than I can remember.

One of my memories of Dave was when Jono Roberts was in the class and we were going around a jibe mark at the Konigsburg. Jono bumped his boat into Dave's. Dave said in a calm voice : "Stop hitting me Jono", Jono bumps him again, again you hear the refrain in a perfectly calm voice, : "Stop hitting me Jono". And so, it went on for a few more times like that. I guess you had to be there, but I will never forget it..

The Regatta, 2007

8 Jets registered for the 2007 Irey. Saturdays racing got under way in 14-19 knots with waves. Past Nationals Champ, Peter Jones (#5) was on hand to run the races. I had the freshly activated 2006 Junior national Champ RJ Bay as crew. And, by freshly activated, I mean, he got a B in his French class at school, so mom said he could sail. He was so excited, he ran the jib halyard up the mast!  This would prove to not be the only "jib halyard incident" of the day.... At first we had Windward -leeward's with downwind finishes, then he threw in a few reach olympic courses to keep everyone on their toes. I found it is important to see the number after the course as Che advised me after I started to go back up wind as he was finishing....

The first race got under way with Dirk starting close to the committee boat and then a 45-50' work boat went straight into the starting area, Dirk yelled, obstruction! Tack! and I did and then I looked back at Dirk and his jib was coming down. Unfortunately, Dirk was not able to make it out for the rest of the weekend.  The following 5 races held that day were pretty tight racing between Doug Brown and Susan Mallows who came down from New Jersey in their recent rebuilt and beautiful Boeing 747.. Che Hale and Ted Reshetiloff.

Sunday dawned with Substantially less pressure and the addition of Gary and Cathy Mentesana and Dick and Carol Kennedy. The first race got under way with #646 going off by itself on the right and 747 and 1144 going left. Ted and Claudia Reshetiloff were hampered by a broken hiking stick, but Ted managed to fix that with what  looked like a big ball of florissant green line.. Left paid...Gary secured the win, and   Doug and I went back and forth and in the end, The Green Beans got 2nd. In the last and final race, a shift at the last moment allowed Gary to port tack the fleet and 1144 was gone. As a matter of fact, we learned that a Jet WILL beat a Albacore in wind, but not so much so when there is less, as the Albacore's came thundering through the jet fleet. Gary however, was able to hold them off until the final beat when he let them go to jockey amongst themselves.

 Michael Parramore

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