Season Opening of CRAM at Crescent Sail Yacht Club
May 17-18, 2014
Nobody knew it, but silently CRAM @ Crescent regatta had its 5th anniversary this year! Well, in the first year we had to cancel the regatta due to stormy and cold weather, but it was in 2010, that we started to open up the season of the Catamaran Racing Association of Michigan at the Crescent Sail Yacht Club.
This year we were lucky. The weather forecast was cold and light, but happily there is always some leeway in a weather prediction and it happened to be a very nice weekend. Seven F18s and 5 Portsmouth fleet boats came to race. It was especially nice to see a couple of sailors on new boats. Matt Hein brought his Nacra F17 and Wayne Tetlow bought a Capricorn last fall with good-looking, colorful infusion sails.
Saturday CRAM was taking advantage of the infrastructure of the annual Leukemia Cup – a fundraiser regatta for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. We shared the racecourse with the Lighting fleet. The race committee led by Crescent Past Commodore Lee Savage was excellent and we sailed 4 races back to back without much waiting on the water.
Saturday night we cooked burgers and marinated chicken for everyone and after a while of sailing discussions everybody reunited around the fireplace outside the clubhouse.
Sunday racing again was not as cold as predicted. The winds were tricky. One strong puff with a sudden oscillation of about 20 degrees tried to take out two experienced teams. Successful in one case: Team Konfusion had the most authentic report on water temperatures after the race.
CRAM member Kim and Paul Krutty ran the races on Sunday. Overall we had 7 races. Winners in the F18 Class were Jessica and Claus Schnabel. Patrick Pettengill won the Portsmouth class singlehanded on his F16 Blade.
Let’s enjoy the sailing season and return to Crescent on 4th/5th October for the Thistle Icebreaker Regatta. They have a big fleet and will let us participate in racing and their excellent parties.
