Archive for April, 2001

 

Bettina Bents Memorial Regatta

April 11, 2001   

The America True team consisted of myself (Dawn Riley), America True’s Volvo Ocean Race Coordinator, Ashley Perrin who is a big boat offshore sailor with significant shorthanded sailing and Krysia Pohl a Europe Dingy sailor who was just named to the US Olympic Sailing Team. As the week went on we started to improve as a team and learn how to sail the Santana 20’s in a wide variety of conditions. The first two days brought light and lumpy conditions outside that built to a nice strong breeze later in the day. Saturday dawned with torrential and frigid downpours that had us all stalling around the coffee pot waiting who was going to be the first to ‘spook the herd’ and start rigging their boat but for us that ended up being one of the most fun days on the water. We sailed in the harbor in shifty winds with big puffs and lots of current all of this combined with short courses kept the action close, aggressive and fun. We had a great race with fellow America True sailor, Katie Pettibone who had America 3 bowman Suzy Leech and import Ellie Hay sailing with her. Once again I am reminded that match racing is my favourite! You can go out and have a really bad race but you only get to wallow in your sorrow for about 15 minutes because there is another race to start and WIN! We ended up finishing in 3rd place with Pease Glaser in 2nd and Karen Johnson from Canada in 1st. The trophies at women’s’ regattas are always cool. This time we were presented with red, white and blue quilts with our finish embroidered on the blanket. Congratulations to the Club, Sponsors, Volunteers and other competitors. It was great.  by Dawn Riley