Storm Trysail Club, Chesapeake Station, Jr. Sailors Safety at Sea by: Louise Kevin Burke

The Chesapeake Bay heat was almost unbearable for the students lectures on Tuesday morning, July 28th.   But the afternoon sailing was superb.  The wind was light, giving these novice sailors and dinghy sailors a chance to work into the size and forces of four J-105’s, a J-40 and a Farr 33.   Six boats in all took off from the Annapolis Yacht Club docks in mild air for their practice time and then roared to the finish line in a fresh wind in a mid afternoon fun race.

Kevin McNeil, the Chesapeake Station Fleet Captain, Dick Neville, Al Graf, and myself, Louise Burke were again the organizers.  Thanks go to Annapolis Yacht Club Foundation and also AYC’s Linda Ambrose, Jay Kehoe, and Jim Hyde and his workers who were extremely helpful in helping organize at the AYC Sailing Center.

In the morning the students arrived at AYC’s Sailing Center around 0730 to wolf down juices, chocolate and white milk, coffee cakes, huge muffins and water iced down in large buckets.  Water was the order of the day with the heat index sooo high.  Arriving in droves, including 16 Sea Scouts, the students signed in and were issued their badges by volunteers Tarry Lomax and Mark Pellerin.    

Morning lectures started promptly at 0800 with Tucker Thompson’s  “tactical errors” - pictures of dinghies racing.   Sleepy eyes opened wide and glued to the screen with “Oh No” cries beginning their day at the sight of little boats piling up on top of each other in races.  Fred Hecklinger showed them the needed knots for sailors and time after time he lassoed a pole – very impressive.  Al Schreitmueller gave them a lesson on medical problems related to sailing big boats and I showed slides of Man Overboards  they were to practice on the water.  I also demonstrated with a winch and line on how to use them and explained the safe and fast way to use both - and come back with their thumbs still intact. 

We staged a show with a head-sized watermelon on a pole and stuck in a bucket  by which the students, now outside the bldg, saw what their heads might look like if they didn’t know where the boom was at all times, especially coming on deck from down below.  The watermelon, standing bright and tall, was scored through for easy breaking.  One of the older students, a tall strong young man, took a mighty swing with a metal pole and had the bright red of the watermelon splattered all over the concrete.  “There are your brains” I said, “if you are not safety conscious.   If the helmsman is going almost dead down wind in a boat with a steering wheel and gets confused about which way to turn the wheel to prevent an uncontrolled jibe, he or she  must remember to turn the wheel “Away From The Danger”, which is the boom.  Of course dinghy sailors or any tiller sailor will push the tiller toward the boom.” With that picture in their minds they all gathered around the long table outside and had their lunch supplied by Paul’s Deli. who did a wonderful job of getting both breakfast and lunch to us right on time.         

The 6 boats were tied up at the AYC Sailing Center docks in front of us and also Sunny Smith’s 40 foot power boat was coming as our Race Committee Boat. We had  J-105 “Team Tsunami” with Karl Von Schwarz and Bob Howe,   J-105 “Sea Saw” with Kevin Ryman and Chris Kelly,  J-105 “Dreadnought” from the Naval Academy with Jahn Tihansky, Dick Emmett, and Renee Mehl,  J-105 “Dove” with Eric Greene and Frank Volpe,  J-40 “Lark” with Al Schreitmueller and Elliott Oldak, and Farr 33 “Contraire” with Curt Wells and Angus Phillips.   It was a very impressive group of boats, skippers, and instructors.  These students were very fortunate.

No time was wasted eating lunches ashore and soon the boats disappeared in all directions to practice their tacks, their controlled gybes, and their Man Overboards but mainly practiced how to walk around a large racing boat after sitting in sailing dinghies.  The wind freshened nicely and boats were now heeling over and going through their drills.  I was aboard Henry Meilman’s 25 ft Grady White with twin 150’s hanging off the stern.   He and a friend, Allen Hettleman, had rocketed down from Middle River to Annapolis Harbor in one hour flat! When that boat took off it was both hands for the boat.  It made a perfect Safety and Photo boat especially for rounding the boats up for the afternoon race or chasing them in the freshening wind to get pictures. 

All boats were monitoring VHF73 for either problems or information about the mid afternoon race from the Race Committee Boat, the 40 foot “Change of “Pace”. The owner, Sunny Smith, had his wife Anne on board as R.C. timer, a real pro at this as she also calls time for the AYC races.    Peter Sarelas was the race officer. The drills before the race got the students a little more proficient about tacks, gybes and Man Overboards because they could not cross the finish line until they had performed 3 of each maneuver.  That changed the standings at the finish line regardless of the boat’s rating – which we actually ignored since it was just a fun race.  Probably not a bad idea to have the adult racers plan a race with drills like that periodically.  

Race Committee PRO Peter Sarelas called out the orders of the day.   “All boats will perform 3 tacks, 3 gybes, and 3 Man Overboard Drills before finishing.  No boat can perform a Man Overboard near a turning mark to foul another boat from safely rounding” was the call. “And no boat may interfere when a boat is performing their maneuvers in open water” was the order from Peter.  Anne counted down the practice start during which a group of Optimists came tumbling through the starting gate with the stiff breeze on their beam.  Upon hearing a call from me to their coach and seeing these big boats bearing down toward them they quickly changed course sculling rapidly toward the safety side of the pin end, the green can 13.  Rocking and rolling in the waves these kids in their “Opti’s” were wide-eyed on watching the second and actual start of our boats. New SAS candidates??  From the Naval Academy wall  they raced down the Severn River toward the Bay to round a bouy,  then back up and around another bouy further upstream from the starting bouy in the Severn and then into Spa Creek where they finished with a gun and horns from “Change of Pace”.  This is the third year that Sunny and Anne have answered my call for help as a Committee Boat.  They are pros at this and are a great Race Committee.  There was less than a minute between boats finishing 1st,2nd and 3rd, Dreadnought, Lark, and Tsunami and 1 minute 7 seconds difference between 1st and 3rd -  impressive for the first time with students at the wheel.      Some pretty tired students helped tie up at the AYC piers and then got their lessons on “putting a race boat away” complete with sail folding on deck and on the piers. Then it was “Bragging”, Pizza and Party time, well organized by Rob and Kellie Ladd.  

There was a prize for the first boat to finish which went to the Naval Academy J-105 “Dreadnought” run by Jahn Tihansky, Dick Emmett and Rene Mehl and 6 of the  students from the Sea Scouts.  They were given gift certificates to Modell’s Sporting Goods.

Already the emails are coming in from the parents telling of the great time their kids had and to be sure to keep them on the mailing list for next year. 

The goal of the Storm Trysail Club is to further young interested sailors by placing them in larger boats and instruct them in safety.   The Club’s offshore heavy weather sailors are perfect instructors for this task and also are looking for interested young sailors to join them aboard their boats for both the Chesapeake Bay Races and then for offshore sailing.  Safe Sailing, Smart Racing, from the Storm Trysail Club, Chesapeake Station, Annapolis Maryland.