Atlantic Coast Championships

By Dave “Sailordave” Batchelor, Scot 5164

In 2000 Fleet 27 decided to run a district championship regatta at Edenton, NC in the north east corner of North Carolina.  This is a great venue on the Chowan River at the west end of the Albemarle Sound. Hans Noordanus, who was then district Governor for the Capital district, asked if we could combine our district regattas.  Hans now lives in the Netherlands and has two beautiful children.  We alternated the combined district championships a few years and then the FSSA decided to make it the Atlantic Coast Championships with sites up and down the coast but east of Interstate 95 so it would be a coastal regatta in most cases.

Running a FSSA sanctioned regatta like the ACCs is a big undertaking.  The expectations for excellence in all aspects of the regatta are high as skippers and crews travel long distances to compete against other top sailors.  The job is even harder when the regatta venue is 150 miles away in coastal North Carolina and there is no yacht club facility available.  Fleet 27’s fleet captains Alan and Pat Backus handle these issues like pros.  They’ve run this regatta before and have the local contacts and support to make it happen.  Edenton, North Carolina is a small historically rich town and they embrace sailboat racing actively having hosted many regional regattas as well as national championships for the Windmill and Thistle class.  When you meet with the director of the Chamber of Commerce and the commodore of the Edenton Yacht Club they take care of lots of stuff.  The town reserves the whole harbor plus launching and parking areas for Scots only and the club arranges for all the support boats and drivers.  In addition they erect a large tent which serves as regatta headquarters. 

Alan and Pat recruited 10 volunteers from other fleets in the Carolina Sailing Club to serve on race committee with Joleen Rasmussen serving as PRO.   We even had a volunteer from neighboring Lake Townsend YC.   Joleen is well qualified and has run many regional and even national regattas, and her organizational and management skills are well known.   Eric Rasmussen served as the US Sailing senior judge and had an easy time with everyone doing their turns on the water.   The Scots believe in reciprocity, and have recently served as race committee for the Thistle Districts and will again for an upcoming Buccaneer regional regatta. 

It’s about a mile sail out Edenton Bay to the race course on the Chowan River which widens into the Albemarle Sound.   This allows for some good long courses away from land effects and the sailors seemed to enjoy the great conditions.  Winds were averaging 12mph with gust to 15 on Saturday causing some step chop over the relatively shallow waters.  The chop was challenging to some of our inland sailors but the big dogs ate it up.

A social with cold beer and wine plus snacks were enjoyed under the tent as winds cooled the sailors after docking their boat in the well protected harbor.   It was a beautiful site looking out over the bay.  Southern style barbeque and all the fixings were served along with flounder for the non-barbeque eaters.  Left overs were kept refrigerated overnight and made for some excellent lunches the next day as we waited for the awards.  

There were 22 Scots sailing with us in Edenton from NC, VA, MD and PA. They showed great appreciation for all the work put in to run this regatta at the awards ceremony.  The Flying Scot Sailing Foundation just started supplying competition medals for FSSA sanctioned events and this was the first regatta to use them.   I think it very fitting that Harry Carpenter was the first to receive a gold medal.  As the presenter for the medals I made it very clear that no hugs or kisses would be part of the presentation as in the Olympics.  This got a good laugh and then a young lady spoke up to ask if I’d bend the rules if a lady received the award.  Of course rules are meant to be broken in such cases and I did accommodate the lady.  Trophy and medal winners are shown below.  See attachment for Full results.

 Here are some pictures you can view as well:

https://plus.google.com/photos/102573978165251072960/albums/5792276071533458433
 
https://plus.google.com/photos/102573978165251072960/albums/5792294592854686929

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/fe/l=en_US/p/Organizer/AlbumID=7028921028/a=57205261_4236357028/s_c=0/s_cmpg=cjcmpg/s_ccmpg=cjcmpg#state=%7B%22pl%22%3A%7B%22uc%22%3A5%2C%22aid%22%3A7028921028%2C%22vp%22%3A%22g%22%2C%22ss%22%3A198%2C%22sb%22%3A1%7D%2C%22ovm%22%3A%7B%22v%22%3A%22s%22%7D%7D