2012 Colorado Governor’s Cup

The scheduling of the 2012 Colorado Governor’s Cup in late September brought visions to our eyes of steady autumn winds. But that was not the case for the four U20's attending this year’s event.

Saturday’s racing was delayed for half an hour due to a lack of wind. But when the wind finally filled in, it hung around and was sufficient to complete 5 races. The conditions were typical; light with shifty breezes that were spotty and found in lanes across the lake.

In the first race, Brad Lawson on Redbeard pulled a maneuver very similar to the one at the Aspen Open — he took a circuitous route completely around the rest of the fleet, found a nice breeze and passed the other boats by a considerable margin to take a win in race # 1. The rest of the day saw Marty May and Jim Ulatowski exchanging first and second places, with Brad and yours truly fighting for third. After five races, Jim and Marty were tied with 6 points each, Brad was in third place with 12 points and Underdog trailed the fleet with 13 points. Not making mistakes, and having only two crew aboard, was a definite advantage in the light winds.

On Sunday morning, it was obvious that the day’s racing would be split into two separate match races: Juiced vs. Redline, and Redbeard vs. Underdog. And that’s exactly what happened in the one race that our Race Committee was able to run. On the very first beat to windward, Jim and Marty went left; Underdog let them go, in order to cover Redbeard on the right side. There was no way that either Brad or I would catch up 6 points on this light air day of racing, so it truly was a day of match racing. The wind died after we finished the race and, other than the occasional teaser breeze that would pass through, the wind never filled enough to start another race.

Most unusual was that there was not a single protest brought to committee from any boat all weekend. Perhaps the dissipation of the summer heat has tempered us sailors?

Most competitors stayed around on Sunday afternoon in anticipation of winning something from the very large collection of raffle items. Marty appeared to have drawn a lucky batch of raffle tickets as it seems he had a winner ever few minutes. But, that was nothing compared to the junior sailor, Austin Williams, who cashed in over 15 winning raffle tickets! He hardly had a chance to sit down. At the end of the raffle drawings, the Papa John’s pizza arrived and we washed it down with plenty of Dry Dock draft beer. Yum!

The Denver Sailing Association put on a great event that was well organized and well staffed. The food and drink at the Saturday evening party were great . Many thanks to DSA Commodore Jim Ulatowski and all the volunteers that made it happen. The trophies this year were a set of glass coasters plus a bottle of wine for 1st place, very nice!

Congrats to Marty May on his U20 fleet win in the 2012 Colorado Governor’s Cup.

By Cliff Begnaud
Skipper, U-20 # 126
Underdog