Mar 12, 2022 @ 08:44:49 EST
This year's Phebe featured Team Racing for the first time. Teams were greeted by a 10-15 knot Northeasterly that held up all day. PRO Mark Deguire set up our course on Crab Bank and we started our first races shortly after 10 AM. We raced in FJ's and Stanford, Dartmouth and Cornell got off to a strong start. Most if not all races featured moments of close racing with the winners converting and solidifying their plays throughout the races. We completed two full round robins in the steady breeze with Stanford escaping the day undefeated followed by Dartmouth and Cornell who traded wins against one and other but were unbroken otherwise. CofC rounded out the top four going into day two with a 6 and 6 record but they took a penalty after a collision that caused a bit of damage in their last race of the day.
Lighter northeasterly breezes greeted the sailors on day 2 and we were again able to get racing started shortly after 10 AM. The conditions were ideal for team racing with flat water and limited current that was still going out as we got started. This caused a few more OCS's. Jacksonville made the biggest move in round three winning 4 of 6 races. This put them just ahead of CofC as we wrapped up another full round robin around 12:15. With time to complete a final four and consolation round of 3 we took a short break and got racing started again at around 1PM. The breeze became a bit variable as we got into the final races of the day but after having to call a couple races back the breeze settled in allowing us to complete all rounds and head back to the center around 2:30. CofC managed to sweep the consolation round with an exciting set of races against GW and USF. Cornell and Dartmouth were able to take races off of Stanford in the final four and JU took another race against Cornell which demonstrated the depth of the field.
Big thanks are in order to PRO team Mark and Mary Carol Deguire who were assisted by the CofC sailing team. Umpire's were led by Chief Umpire Kathy Lindgren. Jeff Woodard, Charlie Lomax, Kim Kymlicka, Craig Daniels and Debbie Schreiber.
