Nationals 2001:

Whistler made it a clean sweep for 2001 winning both the Season National Championship and the National Championship Regatta in the same year.  For Claudia Wainer, its been a long time coming.  The year was 1990.  Nationals was in Newport Beach and the racing still included reaching legs on some of the courses.  On a boat called Main Squeeze (later Cyclone Malone and now Magic), Claudia and crew racked up 6 bullets and a second in seven races but were unfortunately over early in one race which deprived them of the National Championship. 

Fast forwarding eleven years, and it was the same sort of dominating performance.  Not only was Whistler very obviously the only boat to truly understand the shifts and puffs that were happening, they were winning by large margins of time in many races.  Three firsts, a second, a third and two fourths in some of the toughest conditions a tactician ever wants to be confronted.  Less than half the total points of runner up Outlier.  Total dominance plain and simple.  They didn't actually have to even sail the last race!

One fun thing about this regatta was that many boats found daylight at the top starting with a 1-2 for Gladiator and Limerick in the first race!  Ripple won race two and Twister posted a pile of single digit finishes including a second in race three.  Newcomer Notorious was in the money overall until the last day and Ripple was in second overall going into the last day's racing.

Everyone remarked about what a great time we had at the host Dana Point Yacht Club.  Great food - great clubhouse - great RC!  I especially like the short trip to the race course and heard many people saying that despite the mystifying windshifts they really enjoyed racing here and we should come back again!

The owners at the annual meeting advised the board that they would prefer to race in LA/Long Beach for Nationals 2002, so stay tuned.

Yachting Cup:

The exciting news at Yachting Cup was the 19 boats that showed up to play including new owners Tom O'Neill of Notorious (ex-Chayah) and Charlie Cavallino of Shillelagh. 

After a one year absence of the class from this event, it was nice to come back to a traditional event on our schedule.  SDYC did a nice job of putting on the races and the different experience of racing on the South Bay was a nice change from the usual buoys on the open ocean format.  Besides, how often do you sail by aircraft carriers on the way to the course.  But then, only Outlier truly sailed by the aircraft carrier while the rest of us motored on the way to the first race -- could be a nominee for the Wooden Spoon -- and if they had repeated their prior Wooden Spoon winning feat of motoring to the wrong course they would have been the first mid-year recipient in awhile.

The racing was so tight that at times the boats were seen going around the leeward mark as many as six abreast!  If you ever wanted to know why the class writes to every regatta organizer requesting leeward gates, you found out this weekend when we didn't have them. 

The South Bay proved to be a great venue as there was no persistently favored side to the course and it was necessary to stay very alert to the shifts.  Local knowledge seemed to be the edge as Kathmandu, manned by a crew of young hotshots who grew up racing on the South Bay out of Coronado YC seemed to always be footing for speed to the next shift led at the end of the first day with bullets in races two and three.  But the big talk at the dock after Saturdays races was the performance of Super Gnat which strung together three straight third place finishes to be sitting in second, only two points out of first place.  What a striking comparison -- Kathmandu the tweaked Lipton Cup team only two points ahead of Cliff and new helmsman Agnes Thompson!  Clearly, the sentimental money was pulling for Cliff on day two!

Unfortunately for several teams, Day 2 saw few boats hold to form from Saturday.  Super Gnat fell with two 11's and amazingly, Mischief posted a pair of 13's -- they only had 14 points for the first three races combined including a bullet in race #1!  At the end, the Lipton Cup team from San Diego YC including the Camet brothers on Hotspur which was chartered by Staff Commodore John Driscoll took home second but not without a battle from Piranha that ended up third despite beating Hotspur in all four of the last races including a bullet in race #4.  In that race, a perfect gybe on top of Hotspur about fifty yards from the finish forced them away while Piranha sailed straight to the finish to take the gun. 

On handicap, Super Gnat's great performance on Day #1 was enough to carry them through as the winner, nipping Piranha by a mere .39 points.  Combined with their effort at Ahmanson, Super Gnat is also leading the Season Handicap Standings as the boat sailing the best measured against its own prior performances.

One key point to make -- once again, the Schock 35 Class was the largest at Yachting Cup!  Sure wish the press would take more notice that it is our class that is and has been the biggest and most competitive for YEARS instead of being enamored of the latest toy being promoted by the manufacturers!

Yachting Cup Results -- www.sdyc.org/raceinfo/ycresults.htm

Ensenada 2001:

In a refreshing test of different racing skills, Whiplash is turning out to be the masters of distance racing in our fleet.  This is now two years in a row that Whiplash took home a bullet for the Season Championship Standings on the distance event following last year's win in Santa Barbara to King Harbor.

This year's race started with a bang -- literally -- and I don't mean just the gun.  There was a huge fight for the weather end with Twister and Mischief spinning out from being shut out at the RC boat.  As they both came back around the story gets a little fuzzy, but the upshot was that Mischief center punched a huge hole in the side of Twister as they both went back to start.  Although Mischief was able to go on, Twister was taking on water and was forced to retire (and would have made 20 boats at Yachting Cup but for the damage).  The jury later found Twister at fault and the crews were seen shaking hands at the Bahia Hotel party.

Meanwhile, on Piranha we were psyched by a killer start that punched us out so far ahead of the melee behind us that I actually handed off the helm and turned around to take video (one of these days I'll post the video).  Off we went.  In a good omen of the evening to come, we were doing six knots right off the starting line headed right for the Coronados.  The key to the race seems in retrospect to have been when did you set the chute.  We opted to go way out - 21 miles off the Coronados - in anticipation of the strong Catalina Eddy returning from the night before as promised by the National Weather Service.  Didn't happen.  Instead, we watched Whiplash set an hour ahead of us and sail fewer miles to get there with as good velocity as we had and a better angle.  Coming into the bay Sunday morning, we were greeted by a power boat speeding up from behind which turned out to be the crew of Twister coming down to the party and taking pictures along the way.  (must have been a long way and very early in the morning).  By the way, they promised pictures by email but I haven't got them yet and will post them when they arrive.

It should be noted that congratulations for being first Schock 35 to finish goes to Reflex, although they chose not to race in one-design trim (ineligible for HiPoint) including sailing with a lightweight crew of four.  Their formula is a proven one: light = fast sailing downwind.  A comedy of errors still didn't prevent their arrival in Bahia de Todos Santos ahead of the rest of us.  As skipper and charterer Kirk O'Brien (son of Mama Shillelagh) writes (edited down):

"We had a great but very harrowing start - about as exciting as they get (the start lines seemed very short this year). A couple of minutes into the start, Ian jumped below for something and knocked the main hatch cover overboard - the wood guide rails were below because we hadn't had time to put them back in place! The cover floats, so we turned back around to get it which took about 4 minutes.

We sailed our Rhumb line (~145) all day and evening down to the North Coronado island, at which point one of our crew dropped my hand-held GPS overboard leaving us with only charts and the analog compasses! Yep - no other electronics whatsoever - no knot meter, no nuthin' (so we couldn't even dead reckon properly - the boat was in pretty sorry shape equipment-wise after 6 years in mothballs)! We did some tighter reaching after the Coronados up into the 150-60 degree range to keep the speed up (at that point we were committed to the outside) and occasionally had to chase the wind up to the 180's-200's. In the morning, out of site of land with pretty bad visibility, we had to guess how far down we were, and gibed onto about 85-90 mag for about 3 hours, and found ourselves at the SOUTH end of Bahia de Todos Santos (we literally sailed into the bay with the rocks off Punta Banda immediately to starboard)! But it was really fast the entire time, and enabled us to reach and surf a lot (we estimate we hit some 9+ knotters at times on the surf). We are speculating that if we'd have gibed an hour earlier (if we'd only have known where the hell we were) and gone in north of the islands, we may have been first in our class. But you can never tell because that course wouldn't have been as hot an angle. Just before entering the south end of Todos Santos Bay, we dropped the chute and sailed ~30 mag to the finish, and were able to pop the chute again halfway there. The boats coming in from the north were going pretty slow because at that time it was light and they were going pretty much DDW - but we still had good speed.

The only thing we did right was to work really hard on sailing fast the entire time. Three things I think I've learned this year however are:

1. I don't think I'll ever bother to pre-determine a course again (which we did - and didn't follow in the least anyway) I think I'll just sail the Rhumb as long as it's fast and won't when it's not!

2. Race lean and mean (remember the 12 crew and the 2 tons of provisions in the old Shillelagh days?)......I still love ya mom!

3. Always take redundant navigational systems! (the GPS was great - but she now sleeps with the fishes!)

Hope to see you all on the water more often this year!  Kirk"

All in all it was a fun race - never less than 5 knots of wind and an arrival at lunch time with a long run down the bay in nice breeze made me think the unthinkable - I might just have to tempt fate and go two years in a row!

Results:  1) Whiplash, 2) Mischief, 3) Water Moccasin, 4) Piranha, 5) Magic, 6) Stratagem, DNF) Twister, DNS) Whistler

Ensenada Results -- www.nosa.org/2001raceresults.html

2001 Ahmanson Cup

The wind played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as racing took place in 16-22 knots of wind on Saturday and 7-9 knots on Sunday.  The class looked good as usual fielding the largest fleet by far - twice as many boats as any other class and three times as many as most.

The big wind was eaten up by four boats that thrived in the big seas that came with it.  Wings, Strategem, Mischief and Piranha shared the top four spots in both races of the day.  Wings pulled through with two bullets - including one race in which they hit the mark and did a penalty turn!  The current was stronger than the fleet estimated for most of the weekend with many instances of boats hitting the weather mark.  The big wind did take its toll with many tales of broken blocks, etc.  On Piranha, we watched the .75 oz. spinnaker explode in shreds in race 2.  I can report this is not fast.  Race 3 was cancelled due to problems with the marks after it was started.  Not surprisingly, it seemed like six different boats all claimed to be leading when the race was called.

Day Two (The Morning After) - All was tranquility as blue skies and mild breezes provided a respite from the weather assault of the day before.  The first race of the day proved to be a bit fluky (but still great compared to "normal" Newport).  This shook up the standings and pretty much sealed the regatta for Wings as the boats close to them in the standings all suffered badly in the race.  Several other boats enjoyed leading the fleet with Super Gnat pulling a strong 2d followed by Whiplash 3d, Ripple 4th and Minnesota Fast 5th.

In the final race Strategem spoiled Wings' effort at a picket fence finish to take the win.  In a great move, Strategem reached hard into the leeward gate, and although Wings had inside, Strategem used its speed to shoot out the other side in a lee bow position and force Wings away.  This turned out to be the winning move in the race.  Todd and several recruits he brought with him to augment the Strategem crew clinched second for the regatta.  Returning to form in the final race, Outlier and Whistler took 3d and 4th.

Wings overall win was an amazing sixth in a row at the Ahmanson Cup! 

On handicap, Strategem comes back from a last place finish at the W.D. Schock Regatta to take second at Ahmanson and easily wins the handicap results as the boat that sailed farthest above its average.  Five boats altogether sailed above their average finish in their last three regattas including Wings which would have won on handicap easily had it not been for the enormous turnaround by Strategem followed by Ripple, Super Gnat and Piranha.  Congratulations to all for your great weekend!

2001 W. D. Schock Memorial Regatta

Day 1:  Live By The Sword...Outlier was looking sweet during day #1 of the regatta.  Easy 5-8 knot breezes and unexpected sunny skies shown down upon the fleet as Outlier picked the right corners and posted two bullets to start the day.  Not that it was easy mind you, the fleet was very closely bunched at the leeward mark of both races which were once arounds.  Whistler and Piranha were hanging close 3 and 4 points back after two races, but the big surprise was that defending champion Wings and Mischief were deep in the fleet standings.  Piranha was using up all of its luck on day 1 of the regatta, miraculously recovering from an open jib halyard shackle at the leeward mark to get the sail up and actually pass Mischief on the way to the finish line for second place in the race.  Maybe race #3 should never have happened, but it wasn't a happy one for several boats that suffered from bad luck on this one.  The wind died, and halfway down the final leg, boats on both sides of the race course were reportedly muttering about triple zeros and the fifteen minute rule (more than 15 min. behind leader scores DNF).  Local boys Water Moccasin and Mischief both saw the likely south shift in the dying breeze and came back from poor position at the weather mark to come home first and third with Bill Menninger on Minnesota Fast squeezed between them.

out·li·er (outlr) n.  1. an extreme deviation from the mean  2. A value far from most others in a set of data

Unfortunately for Outlier, the boat lived up to its name and went from penthouse to outhouse, limping home off the south corner downwind in last place just behind Whistler. and handing first place honors for the day to Piranha on a silver platter (or maybe almost a plate and wooden spoon).

The dinner highlight was the presentation of the Sailing World "Boat of the Year"  award to our parent factory, the W. D. Schock Corporation.  Not only did the Schock 40 win the overall prize, it was the first boat in the history of the award to sweep three categories in the competition.

Day 2:  Play Smart:  Despite the dire forecasts of flooding, high seas and gale force winds that made it sound like the National Weather Service thought we should all consider sailing an ark instead of a Schock 35, gentle breezes and dry pavement were found on arriving at NHYC on Sunday morning.  Outlier came back with a vengeance and just flat took the regatta into its own hands.  No corners -- just play it smart -- get off the starting line clean, minimize tack in the 13-16 kts. of wind and take advantage of the lack of passing lanes that came with the higher wind and more stable shifts.  The start of race #4 was a mess.  The pin end was so ridiculously favored that it was almost impossible to even cross the line on starboard and many boats didn't!  A very one sided beat and the ability to lay the leeward mark from the the weather mark on this one lap race made the start everything.  Outlier took another bullet, followed to the finish by Whiplash, Water Moccasin and Wings that was coming back to life.  Race #5 was much the same, although two laps, there was just nowhere to pass.  Once again, smarts and experience led the pack as Wings took home a first to save third for the regatta while Outlier cruised home with an easy second to wrap it up.  Meanwhile, Whistler sailed a quietly efficient regatta with a 5-3 on Sunday to overcome the race 3 disaster and take home second place while Piranha had used up all its luck on Saturday and took a 10-9 to end the regatta in fourth overall.

At the awards ceremony, Dick Schmidt generously called Gordy Palmer to the podium and gave him the crystal take home trophy recognizing his job as tactician.  But for the statistical "outlier" in the drifter race, it was a dominant performance of 1-1-1-2!

Other Notes On The Regatta:  Good to see the debut of two new boats on the course.  Limerick (ex-Ricochet) took 4th in race #3 with new owner Alice Leahey at the helm and Gladiator (ex-Absolute) with Mr. Scuttlebutt himself, Tom Leweck calling tactics was in the top few boats at the first weather mark in every race on day #1.  For the first time out of the starting gate, both did very well.

Finally, a plea: BRING BACK THE LEEWARD GATE!

Next up for the class:  A seven week break to rest and recharge before the heart of the season begins with the Ahmanson/Ensenada/Yachting Cup triple header/Iron Man competition of three regattas in three weekends.  See you there!

Presidents Message - 2001

What goes around seems to come around. Dick Schmidt was president in 1992 and 2000. I followed as class president in 1993 and have taken the helm again in 2001. First of all, thanks to Dick Schmidt for an outstanding year as class president. He was able to solve the problems that cropped up and the class thanks him for his efforts.

In 1993, being class president was easy. The class was on the rise, and we hit all time highs in every category. We were the largest class at every regatta, even larger than PHRF classes. We were always featured in articles about sailing and my boat was even featured in Sailing World, thanks to the curmudgeon (Tom Leweck). In other words, we were extremely successful as an amateur offshore one-design class.

Between then and now, things have changed. We now have competition from other one-design classes, which have followed us, like the 1D35, J-120, and there are others. The economy played a part, in that disposable income went way up, allowing big dollars to be spent on sailboats. But most of all, the perception in the eyes of the sailing public has changed. 

I accept that perception. Our class therefore, represents the best amateur sailboat racing that can be had in Southern California. You have to be good to race in this class, and your crew has to be good. You have to manage. You have to plan. You have to train. These are the things that breed success in our class.

The message from the president is therefore, if you want to sail with us, you had better be good.

Cliff Thompson, owner of “Super Gnat”

Ed. Note:  The more things change the more they also stay the same.  The S-35 Class was STILL the largest class @ Ahmanson, Cal Race Week, Yachting Cup and Santa Barbara to King Harbor! 

Interview with Dennis Case 

35:  Dennis, what is the key to your consistency in being at the top of the fleet?

Dennis:  Well obviously, crew.  It's sailors who win races.  I've been very fortunate in having a crew that's been loyal and steady.  The majority of my crew have been on the boat now for seven years with me.  I've only got two members who have been with us less than that.  With that level of experience and that level of commitment the guys all want to get better, the guys all want to do
it as best as they can, and they're all getting better as sailors, they're all growing together.  Now, when they're not racing with me, they're doing tactics and are the main guy on a lot of other boats.  So they've all moved up in the world, but still, Wings is their big program.

35:  Do you do something in the off-season to keep improving?

Dennis:  Well, I think obviously when you have a race hard crew, that's what you want.  You can't win by just doing hi-point races.  You need to race and race and race.  We're not racing as much as we used to, and I think because of that it's probably going to be difficult for us to keep our position in the fleet.  The people in Marina del Rey are racing a lot together, and one-design racing is where it is.  That's where you can compare your speed, that's where you can develop your moves, that's where you develop your confidence, your starting techniques.  We're not doing that in San Diego anymore.  We're doing PHRF racing and there's a world of difference as everybody knows.  We do as many races as we can, but not as many as we used to.  I'd like to do more.  You can't do too many.

35: Do you have any tips on how to improve and move up in the fleet?

Dennis: On a big crew boat like a Schock 35 a big part of success is basically management skills.  You've got to manage both the crew and the program.  You've got diverse personalities and you've got to cater to those things; some guys are more temperamental than others.  But when I first started out, I wanted to get all these rock stars or great sailors to sail on my boat and I'd twist
a few arms and they'd come out one time and then I couldn't get them back again.  I almost stopped racing the Schock because it was so hard to get a crew and the number of telephone calls I used to make.  And then finally I just got off that track and I said to myself was what I wanted to do was just find guys that were like myself who wanted to take their sailing seriously, to be good and to work hard at it and we'll grow together.  We got guys that were good solid sailors, but they weren't on anybody's rock star list and we brought them on and we brought their friends on and then we dedicated ourselves to being as good as we could be.  We would talk about the races afterwards, and where we made mistakes and how we could do things better.  I think that's where it all starts.  You have just got to have the crew and you've got to have the dedication.  The crew all works on the boat.  We all fair the boat - it's their boat - one of my crew members has taken it over now, he's in charges of the bottom now.  He tells the crew how far to fair the boat, how much sanding to do.

35:  How far do you sand the boat?

Dennis:  As far as he wants to sand it!  Believe me he goes four times farther than I'd ever go! 

35: What do you use for bottom paint on Wings?

Dennis: Micron CSC Shark White.

35: What was the key moment yesterday that made the difference for Wings to win the 2000 W.D. Schock regatta?

Dennis: Certainly the one that gave us the greatest amount of satisfaction was the race that we won.  That's the one that's always the most fun, and to win a close race by a nose is even more exhilarating for you; unfortunately for the person who loses it's not so exhilarating.  At the finish line, picking up two boats from the leeward mark and passing them for the finish was pretty important, and that's where your crew comes in again.  Mischief crossed our bow on starboard.
We were on port headed toward the committee boat end and they crossed us with a good lead; I'd say their boatlength plus another good boatlength and I didn't think there was any chance of beating them.  Then one of our crew members on the rail said "you know the way that line is canted like that Dennis if we really work at this real hard and tack at the committee boat we might be able to get them."  So, we dialed in on that concept and we squeezed the boat up as high as we could to get right up on the transom of the committee boat and then just went into a big luff and we got Mischief by a fraction of a nose.  I'm sure they never thought that we could do that and I didn't think we could do that, it was one of my crewmen bringing that point up that made it possible.

35: Who was the crewman?

Dennis: Gary Gurdedski.  And then downwind we were in a not particularly good situation and you probably recall when, I think it was the second race where we went off toward the beach on the downwind and we came right up into the number three position which allowed us to pass the other two boats.  The crew was looking over and they said "You know Dennis, there's more wind over by the beach."  Ripple, by the way, was over on that side of the course and although we had arrived [at the weather mark] side by side with them, now they had a substantial lead over us which validated that point.  Again, the crew, picking out these things.  The guys are smarter now and I've got all those eyes looking and it makes a difference.

35: Where did you round the weather mark in that race?

Dennis: Fifth or sixth.  I picked up say, four boats on that leeward run by going over to the beach and then picked up the last two guys on the weather leg.  That's always very gratifying to be able to move through a fleet.

To hear the rest of the interview, click here!

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author alone and are not officially endorsed by the Schock 35 Class.