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| 2010 Windmill National Championship at Lake Lanier Sailing Club, GA | July 15 - 18 |
| Story |
| This video says it all: Windmill Nationals 2010 (YouTube) (July 15-18th). Lake Lanier is about 45 minutes northeast of Atlanta, Georgia and about 10 hours from Columbus and twisty, turney for the final hour. The drive was mostly white knuckles in torrential downpour which made it humid for late afternoon pop-up storms throughout the regatta. Unfortunately, the wind went with the storms for shifty conditions including heavy motor boat chop for the first two days. Day Three conditions were solid. Lake Lanier Sailing Club (LLSC) is on a large body of water on a non-drought year, and hosts many NAs like the Thistles and Highlanders in 2010 also. Other than good One-design sailing, LLSC like Hoover has Wednesday night and weekend club racing with high-end PHRF handicap racing in Melges, J-Boats and Trimarans. They know how to run races and take their sailing seriously and with southern hospitality. The Race Committee learned to lengthen the courses after the first race realizing that Windmills are faster than heavier dinghies even in light conditons. LLSC is an unassuming club with good facilities with a club-owned beach with camping where a majority of the competitors and their families stayed. Access to the lake was simple for some launched from the ramp and others like us left our boats beached so we could roll out of bed and race. Hotels and B&Bs are less than 5 minutes away where the fleet camaraderie regularly challenged the staff at the Lakehouse restaurant. The fleet was friendly albeit competitive with 6 former national champs, and conditions made mistakes painful. Most courses were about an hour and long W,L,W,L or adding a W twice out of 10 races which must be a Windmill Class record as I can recollect. The Windmill class (WCA) announced Rock Hall, Maryland as host to the 2011 NAs which has similar course traits plus current and saltwater, southern hospitality, beach launching, club camping, nearby accommodations, and nice facilities with a pool. I hope you can make it -- another great venue. There were 10 races over 3 days. Light and variable winds Day One and Two, medium Day 3... Synopsis: 1) John Jennings -- 1961 NAs winner and Prince of Whales Champ from St. Petersburg, FL... borrowed Ethan Bixby's boat, had a super crew and untouchable speed upwind... rarely made mistakes. Would sail sideways across the lake on a header to cover. Hard to beat... 2) Reddaway Kids -- local Atlanta 420 juniors -- super light (-80 lbs), uncle former Hoover member and junior... fast up/down... had to had to make early moves to get inside shifts on them... their mistakes mostly didn't matter... 3) Arthur Ansonov -- 2009 Champ -- heavy (+30 lbs) with short board... consistent, footed but couldn't point with lightweights... good offwind speed. Nice, tough Starboat guy -- unflappable. Rarely veers off rhumb line. 4) Alex Krumdieck -- former Champ -- jumped in after 15 years, had 8-year-old daughter did an impressive job... Super light (-65 lbs)... Turned it on last day edging us by 1 point. Second or third fastest boat upwind with new Dieball sails. 5) Craig Tovell-- over early Race One acquiring throw-out. Over early Race Two for 2nd place. Race Three lost lead to Jennings last weather leg for 2nd. Day Two: 3rd and 4th over early adding 200 yards finishing 10th, 2nd and 10th. Day Three, consistent, but split with Krumdieck in both races -- six point swing in 2 races... Also Dieball sails. Had good and fun 420 crew. 6) Paul Abdullah -- Thistle & Interlake NA Champ (won at Hoover NAs) -- sailed #4200 with new Dieball sails. Had Snipe crew. Fast, but got caught "Outside the Wheel" on occaission. 7) Chris Demler -- had some great starts and weather legs, but caught outside like many of us... Needs new sails. 8) Allen Chauvenet 9) Roger Demler 10) Collin Browning -- dogfight for consistency or as Allen put it, "Caught in a Demler Sandwich." Highlights of the annual meeting, held Saturday night in conjunction with the class dinner, included the election of Tom Lathrop as the 6th ever Honorary Member of the Windmill Class. In a presentation run by Alan Taylor, many sailors spoke of Tom’s Windmill career both as a racer and as a promoter of the class. Along with other contributions, Tom is responsible for the development of the “Composite” Windmill with the design and construction of the first such boat “Harbinger” (5416) which is owned by his son Mark. Proving the value of this stiff and easily self-rescuing boat, Harbinger has won many top placings in major events including 3rd in both the 1994 and 2005 Nationals as well as other frequent top-10 finishes. Boats built from the Lathrop design have been constructed in Greece, Finland and across the US. “Beauty & The Beast” (built from Lathrop molds by Marvin Spencer) was 5th behind Harbinger in the 2005 event which included one race where the boats were 1-2. Tom designed a booklet with construction details and has been available as a consultant to many builders. The newest professionally-built Windmill (5580 by Dan Litten) is also built to the Lathrop design. Other key items at the meeting were the approval of the new constitution and bylaws, the first such total update since 1970. The class owes a great debt to outgoing president Dave Neilsen for his work in spearheading this revision to which many Windmillers contributed. With Dave stepping down, Lon Ethington was elected class president and all expressed confidence in Lon’s ability to spearhead further re-development of the class. The secretary/treasurer position was split, with Allen Chauvenet continuing as secretary and former president Bill Blanton assuming the financial responsibilities as treasurer. |
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