National Dream Deferred

Sloop Qualifyers was held out of Detroit Yacht Club Sept. 20-21, 2008. Out of an expected 15 schools, 14 showed to sail Flying Scots. Tod Reynolds skippered, Liz Hines was on Jib and Spin trim, and Joe Teno worked the foredeck. Our only preparation for this regatta was two days of boat handling practice out of Sheridan Shores the week before.

Racing was postponed both Saturday and Sunday, but 9 races still took place between the two. NU got off to a rocky start due to the light air and strong current and were 3 min late to the start of the first race. Determined to place better the second race Tod tried to win the boat and again, thanks to the current, got hung up on the Committee boat and had to do a spin. There were lots of nerves at work on the NU boat. However, with lots of racing left Liz and Joe were able to refocus Tod and get him sailing well again and NU finished Saturday with a 2nd a 4th. While other schools were also inconsistent, we knew that we had a lot of work to do going into Sunday. Thanks to NUST alum Cliff Harding who was housing the NU team for the weekend, everyone was able to relax for the night and prepare for the next day.

Sunday brought a different wind direction and different NU results. Sticking to the original game plan of conservative sailing and minimizing mistakes NU was able to go 1, 2, 2, 3 in the first 4 races of the day. This left us 1 point out of first, and two points ahead of 3rd going into the last race. On the start of the last race, Tod shifted his mindset to match racing the top two boats in order to secure a spot at Nationals. Sure enough, the third place team presented themselves on the starting line and NU went in for the kill drawing a penalty. NU went on to place second in the race and won the regatta on the water.

Unfortunately, Tod decided that although NU had won the regatta, the sportsman like thing to do was follow through with the protest against Owens that had come about during the last race, and through some twisted turn of fate NU ended up getting disqualified. Tod, Liz, and Joe left Detroit disappointed in the decision to protest and upset that they would not be going to Nationals.