Larchmont Frostbiters Place 1-2 at
Interclub National Championship
April 16-17, 2011
Winthrop, MA
Nine LYC teams traveled north to Winthrop, Massachusetts over the weekend to compete for the 2011 IC Nationals. Long-time LYC winter sailors Paul-Jon Patin and Felicity Ryan won their first-ever IC nationals in nearly 20 attempts, besting LYC sailors and two-time national champions John & Molly Baxter in very breezy conditions.
John and Molly Baxter (sail 66, background) beat into a treacherous
easterly on Saturday Photo by Sue Hardy.
The strong breeze forecasted for the whole eastern seaboard didn’t disappoint the 35-boat fleet, and Saturday saw big ESE breeze in the high teens with gusts into the low to mid 20s and large waves. Given the even breezier forecast for Sunday, the Race Committee announced on Saturday morning that they intended to run enough races on Saturday to allow for a discard.. As a result, the course featured a short first beat, with the windward mark only 100 feet off the shore and the leeward marks on the other side of the harbor just off the runways at Logan Airport. The long run across the harbor into heavier breeze and bigger waves made for interesting gybes and strategies for staying upright. Over a dozen different boats capsized over the course of the day, including several A fleeters and past national champions.
While many teams felt as if it were survival conditions, a few Larchmont teams excelled. John & Molly Baxter emerged from the pile at the first windward mark in the lead, only to lose a few places at the leeward mark due to a mainsheet malfunction, allowing Patin, a past Sunfish world champion, with long-time crew Felicity Ryan to sneak by. LYC winter sailor Keith Taboada won the second race and finished races 3 and 4 in the top 10, marred only by a DNS in Race 1 because of an equipment failure. The Baxters and Patin/Ryan battled throughout the day, with Patin/Ryan carving up the fleet downwind by catching waves and sailing through others’ lee while other teams stayed higher in an effort to avoid death rolling. After four races, Patin/Ryan led John & Molly by a point, with Paul and Gaelen Adam from the Winthrop IC fleet in third place nearly 20 points behind. The conditions continued to deteriorate, and the RC sent the fleet in after Race 4.
LYCers Jay Rhame and Katie Murphy (boat 50) sail over the top of Bill Rothwell as IC 708 catches air on a wave. Photo by Tom McHugh
The teams enjoyed the hospitality of Cottage Park Yacht Club late into the evening, with a great dinner, a large raffle, and some candlepin bowling. To everyone's surprise, at 8am on Sunday the breeze was down, and the sailors, thinking that the front had come through early, scrambled to get dressed and put boats back in the water. As the last boats made their way down the hoist, the breeze picked up, with gusts into the mid to high 20s. After several "wait and see" periods, the RC pulled the plug around 11:15am for the day. Given the cancelation, results from the first day stood, with Paul-Jon Patin and Felicity Ryan winning the 2011 IC Nationals, followed by John & Molly Baxter in second. In addition, Paul-Jon won the 2011 Wharf Rat Challenge, a trophy given to the top placing team over seven national level Interclub regattas over the course of the winter. The national championship is Patin’s first since joining the Interclub fleet in the early 1990s. LYC winter sailors have won the IC national championship five years running, and seven of the past nine years, with five different LYC skippers winning the title during that time.
Photos courtesy of Sue Hardy and Tom McHugh
