The Dynamite Cup is Bayview Yacht club's qualifier to particapate in the Richardson Cup, a grade 3 Match Racing event.  Eric Vigrass, a trimmer for Pied Piper Racing, was participating in his first Match Racing event as helmsmen. It was my first time as tactician for Eric, this event for us was going to be about gaining experience and working to be competitive in every race. 

  
The event got off to a slow start. A lack of wind and then a lighting storm postponed racing until early afternoon on Saturday. This forced the organizing authority to change the race schedule format to a first round elimination series. It was pressure on from the get go in a first to 2 points elimination round. At random our team was matched against Sandy Hayes.

 

In race one Eric did a nice job pushing Hayes away from the line. We headed back to the line first and won the start never relinquishing the lead. Race 2 proved to be a little more competitive. Hayes won the pin end of the line which was heavily favored. We started on port to get our bow out and ahead. Hayes tacked to port at the pin from there Eric did a great job of staying bow out and closing gauge. At the top third of the course we initiated a tacking duel and began closing more distance. Our final tack to port to make the weather mark Hayes tacked just to weather of us. Eric was able to luff her and she never regained full speed. Despite trying to flag us for the use of kinetics (which failed because it is an umpire initiated call not competitor initiated) we rounded the weather mark inside and ahead of Hayes. From there we extended our lead winning the race and eliminating Hayes 2 – 0. 

 

In the revised format this qualified us for a single round robin round to decide positions 1 though 6 in the regatta. The first round winners were Gulari, Hollerbach, Shriner, Fortune, Van Tol and Vigrass. We drew Van Tol first in the round robin this was a tough match we caught a penalty early in the pre-start and then we were early at the pin for the start. From there we were never able to catch up.

 

Round 3 versus Shriner had a very exciting first up wind leg. We made an error in the pre-start heading back to the starting line too soon. Leaving the door open for Shriner to reach down the line and get the jump to weather of us. Using starboard tack advantage and a series of tight covers on the port tack Shriner did a good job of pushing us to the port layline. Shriner was about to shut us out completely when we made a last effort to tack to port. Shriner delayed his tack by enough that we were able to get bow out keep our air clear. Eric did a great job managing the close quarters and shifty northwest breeze coming off the shore. By the top mark we had put Shiner on our stern and maintained that lead for the rest of the race.

 

Round 4 versus Gulari was a great race we managed to get a slightly better start then Gulari on starboard and above him. Gulari worked to foot out on starboard and then tacked to port to take a run at us. Tacking on our lee bow he was able to close gauge to us. We tacked to port, Gulari followed. A tough set of power boat chop helped slow Gulari down out of his tack and didn’t affect us quite as bad. From there it was our turn to lee bow Gulari and Eric again executed well as we forced them to tack away. We sailed a bit further into a right hand shift and tacked to extend our lead by a bit. We rounded ahead at the weather mark. Gulari managed to stay very close on the downwind jibing to starboard shortly after rounding the weather mark. We crossed him as they came back at us on port at the bottom third of the leg. From there we jibed to port to stay between there boat and leeward mark. We had a nice chute take down and rounded just ahead at the leeward mark. The 2nd upwind leg we worked the wind shifts pretty well and were able to get some breathing room but at the weather mark we had some issues with our chute set that caused us to give up our lead. This was very frustrating as up until this point we had sailed a very good race. We traded jibes at the bottom third of the course with Gulari doing a good job protecting his lead.

 

We sailed our last race versus Hollerbach. We caught an early penalty for not completing our tack to starboard during the dial up. Hollerbach did a nice job controlling us during the start and came off the line to weather of us. We started closer to the pin with our bow out. The wind direction and velocity had been changing all day add that to the current and calling any type of layline from more then 8 boat lengths was difficult. Hollerbach pushed us to the left side of the coarse but not quite far enough. We tacked to port on there hip. Hollerbach hit a hole in the wind as we used our wind to go fast over the top of them. We carried that tack all the way to the weather mark. We cleared our penalty at the bottom end of the 1st downwind leg and lead the rest of the way around the course.

 

Overall a very positive weekend, we accomplished our goals of being competitive in each race and stayed very positive despite some tough conditions. We ended the event in 4th but had a real shot at winning the event.  Eric is planning to represent the Port Huron Yacht Club at the Richardson Cup in Buffalo at the end of September.   

 

1. Bora Gulari

2. Adam Hollerbach

3. Chris Van Tol

4. Eric Vigrass

5. Dave Shriner

6. Perin Fortune 

 

Skippers eliminated in day 1

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

Jack Jennings

Pied Piper Racing