RACING IN BUBBA-LAND?
...HARDLY!
Make no mistake, Charleston Race Week is decidedly not racing in Bubba-Land.
The city is first rate, the facilities are 4-star, the racing & weather are terrific and the competiton keeps getting better each year.
Okay, we'll grant the CRW detractors (and there seem to be quite a few on other sailing sites) the fact that having to schlepp all the way out to K-Land (the comp dock for early race registrants) was a bit of a chore. But hey, at least it was a nice walk out to the end, past the CofC sailing center and mothballed warships (part of their maritime museum).
Racing down here differs quite a bit from the more hectic style in Annapolis. Rolling starts were not in existence on our circuit and the wait between races has a tendancy to get you stuck on Island Time, which isn't always the best way to get your head in the game for the next start. Our PRO's tendancy to send us out on courses that finished upwind did, however, introduce a pleasant "Eats & Drinks" leg, getting on back down to the next start. Sort of nice, if you like that kind of thing.
Always nice to have the Barby fired up for a few T-bones while waiting for the next gun, eh? These guys clearly have their priorities straight!
PARTY-WISE
I don't have much to say about what was happening Apres-Tent, because we never saw it. Or, more accurately, I never saw it.
The tent parties were usually more than adequate to get us sent on our Merry Ways (designated driver, of course) and having to get up really early, to meet the 10 am offshore check-in/warning gun, offered a huge incentive to get to bed on the earlier side of late-ish.
As far as the Tent Parties went, local favorite "Pagan," hands-down Party Winner of the J35 N.A.C.'s in Annapolis last September, could not hold a candle to out-of-towners, "Incommunicado Racing," who clearly dominated in the Beach Dance, Hot Tub Abuse and Generally-Just-Falling-Over competitions. Huge props to Team Incommunicado, who clearly were on their game, no lie.
BAY BOATS REPRESENT:
No lie here, either. Chesapeake boats came loaded for bear and chalked up a bunch of Overall scores in the money.
Bullets went to "NKE," phrf B, "Angry Chameleon," J80, and "Remedy," in phrf F.
Seconds went to "Incommunicado," in phrf D, "RUSH," in J109, and "MMallow," in the Melges 24 fleet.
And "Rhumb Punch" picked up a third in phrf F, too...I've probably missed a few others.
Left,
Team Incommunicado in serious prestart game-on mode. They took second in PHRF
D, missing a bullet by one point. Third place in PHRF D missed second by .01
pts...tiebreaker. That's 1.01 pts separating the first 3 boat's overall scores.
This year had very close handicap racing on a bunch of the circuits.
SPONSORS
Big props to Gosling's. The rum never ran out, to our knowledge. Their reps never gave anyone any grief about wearing a Mt. Gay hat to the tent. And they had some decent swag to hand out to the rank & file, too.
Biggest
winner in the cool sponsor category though was: SELDEN
, who laid a brand new carbon pole on the J24 "Jesus Lizard," for
their performance after Day 2. Talk about a slick door prize! A new J24 rodeo
pole goes for something like 7 or 8 boat-units, so the smile on this dude's
face is legit. Good on Selden spars!
SO, TO RECAP...
Charleston Race Week is not Key West, Annapolis or Block. It's got it's own idiosyncracies and quirks and it's not bringing in too many rock stars or big boats, but so what? If you sail to have fun, both on the course and afterward, it ranks up there with the best. I would go back in a heartbeat. I mean, what else are you going to do between the beginning of April and the beginning of Weeknites up here and the NOOD regatta? Chucktown offers a great way to kill a week and get in gear for the season up here.
