Yacht Racing

Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association Region 2 sailors enjoyed a challenging weekend of varying conditions and solid competition in back-to-back events.They had the Magothy River Sailing Association Race to Baltimore, sponsored by the Harbor Hospital Center last Saturday, and the Rock Creek Racing Association Baltimore Harbor Race on Sunday.Winners in Saturday's MRSA race, on a course shortened to 18.8 miles from the PHRF A division's 24.8-mile route -- and of the Harbor Hospital Center's Gull Trophy for best overall in the event -- were Pasadena sailor Les Toeplitz and his crew aboard his Morgan 27 Wizard.

A contender in one of the state's best-known yacht races has an unlikely ringer on its crew of 19: a blind Special Olympian with finely tuned hearing and other senses. Ben Collins is a three-time gold medalist in the tri-state Special Olympics, and he has steered the boat across the finish line for the two years he has been with the crew of the Donnybrook. The 72-footer holds the record for the fastest finish in the history of the St. Mary's College of Maryland Governor's Cup. "It's a lot of fun," Collins said as he prepped the boat at Annapolis City Dock yesterday afternoon.

The U.S. Yacht Racing Union has announced this year's schedule for junior sailors' ladder competition.Racing is in three classes, with single-handers competing toward the D. Verner Smythe Trophy, double-handers going for the F. Gregg Bemis Trophy and three-man crews aimed at the Sears Cup.For each class, sailors first must be selected by their yacht racing associations. These winners go on to USYRU area competitions, whose winners will advance to the final, national competition.Locally, the first steps of the ladder, the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association competitions, are regattas and assessments that are open to any CBYRA-area junior sailors, without special invitation.

David Askew isn't one of those fair-weather sailors. Two summers ago, the Annapolis resident stayed in the Governor's Cup Yacht Race when a squall of heavy lightning, rain and winds spurred more than two dozen others to drop out. Some have said it was one of the toughest races in the more than three-decade history of the annual 70-mile regatta - with fewer than half of the 161 boats in the race finishing within the 21-hour limit - but that didn't deter...

Sailors across the country can breathe a collective sigh of relief knowing they can participate in races without fear that a collision will stick them with a bill for damages even if the accident wasn't their fault.A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruling on an Annapolis case, upheld the system that has governed and protected sailors so well for a long time.Tuesday's decision ultimately benefits sailing in general and racers in particular, since it effectively removes a dangerous red herring -- the principle of assumption of risk of damages by a sailor whenhe enters a race.

Early last spring, much was discussed about the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association and the U.S. Yacht Racing Union serving as friends of the court in an appeal of a lawsuit resulting from a collision of two racing sailboats off Annapolis.In this case, DeSole v. US, one sailboat was hit by another, and the collision was freely acknowledged by all parties to have been the fault of the latter.Instead of typically settling for damages, the case became a cause celebre after the defendant's attorney, using a precedent from a motorboat racing case, successfully convinced the judge to dismiss the case.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - When the international crews of the yachts competing in the Whitbread Round the World Race stepped ashore here at the end of Leg 1, they were following in the footsteps of mariners of old.Since its foundation in 1652 as a way station for vessels of the Dutch East India Company, Cape Town has been in the business of welcoming transoceanic sailors seeking rest, refreshment and repair.It has long been known as "The Tavern of the Seas," a reputation enhanced by development of a waterfront complex of hotels, restaurants, bars and shops to rival Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

THE INNER HARBOR'S hopping this weekend:FUN AND GAMES:Round up the kids and have some lighthearted fun at the 26th annual Fell's Point Fun Festival, tomorrow and Sunday in historic Fells Point. Hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Information: 675-6756.If you have kids, highlights include clowns, bagpipers, kids shows, pony rides and face painting.If you don't have kids, go anyway. You'll find live big band, jazz and country/western music, as well as a beer garden and more than 250 vendors. The Pride of Baltimore II, back in Baltimore after a summer of being elsewhere, will be at Broadway Pier.

Arnold C. Gay, a yachtsman who competed in some of the world's most challenging ocean races and once flew an airplane underneath a bridge, died Wednesday at Anne Arundel Medical Center of scleroderma. The Annapolis resident was 74.He had sailed in every Annapolis-to-Newport, R.I., race except one and in 1978 won the St. David's Lighthouse Trophy in the Newport-to-Bermuda Race aboard his vessel, Babe. He won numerous Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association races and was a longtime coach and teacher in the Naval Academy's offshore sailing program until becoming ill several years ago.Rest and good food were his secrets for maintaining the stamina needed to compete in ocean races.

Members of the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association will be surprised to read in the latest issue of The Traveler, that association's newsletter, an explanation of refusal to accept legal liability by Dean Case, president of Reliance Insurance Company, based on the Doctrine of Assumption of Risk.This is not a new issue, and it is one many had thought was settled since the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., handed down its decision in the Annapolis-based Cinnabar-Ciro case (DeSole v. U.S.)

After successfully playing host to the Volvo Ocean Race for three voyages, Baltimore and Annapolis will be left high and dry during the 2008-2009 sailing event. Race officials are scheduled to announce tomorrow that Boston will be the North American stopover for the around-the-world race, according to a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts economic development office. More than a sailboat race, the Volvo was a financial force in the region.

The self-proclaimed oldest regatta on the Chesapeake Bay will, for the first time this year, include a new competitive class for Maryland Special Olympic athletes. Any Governor's Cup Yacht Race skipper who brings on board one intellectually disabled athlete (along with his or her nondisabled partner) will qualify to compete in the new class, or division, during the overnight race from Annapolis to St. Mary's College. The regatta begins Aug. 4. "We're always looking for opportunities to develop the Governor's Cup and make it something that is an interesting event beyond just the race itself," said Torre Meringolo, vice president for development at the college.

The Baltimore Waterfront Festival was in its opening moments yesterday when an improbable duo decided to add a bolt of energy. She was older, on the short side and a skilled performer. He was barely out of his teens, taller and a dancer whose best moves could be politely described as unorthodox. But together in front of hundreds of people with a high school band as background, the two effectively got the party -- and the four-day festival featuring the Volvo Ocean Race -- started. "I'm here to enjoy life and the boats," said Carole Weinberg, a 65-year-old ballroom dance coach from Randallstown who punctuated her impromptu routine with a headstand.

ST. MARY'S CITY -- He didn't come in first, not by a long shot, but J. Russell Baker's first trip back in more than a decade to the sailing race he founded as a college student was a resounding success. Baker couldn't have ordered better weather for St. Mary's College of Maryland's 31st annual Governor's Cup Yacht Race -- sunshine, winds steady at about 25 knots. Nor could he have asked for a better crew -- a bunch of old salts that included a retired Navy meteorologist, a naval architect and an expert sailor who has raced the bay for 25 years.

St. Mary's College of Maryland is making an offer that sounds hard to refuse. Give back the college's Governor's Cup trophy and get $1,000, no questions asked. And one other thing. St. Mary's would like it back before Aug. 6, when the college's 31st annual Governor's Cup Yacht Race takes off from Annapolis, headed for St. Mary's and the finish line the next day. "The college desperately wants to find this missing piece of the Governor's Cup's history," Torre M. Meringolo, vice president for the college's office of development, said in a statement.

ST. MARY'S CITY -- From his position aboard the Maryland Dove, a replica of a 17th-century sailing vessel, Rob Bartsch got a first glimpse of the sailboats as they made their way up the St. Mary's River yesterday to finish the 30th annual Governor's Cup Yacht Race, one of the last overnight races on the Chesapeake Bay. Using binoculars, Bartsch called out boat numbers to fellow race committee members. "Three, one, three, one, four," he cried as a craft from Annapolis named the Daily Grind slipped past the wooden bow of the Dove.

C. Gaither Scott of Annapolis has been honored by the U.S. Sailing Association, the national governing body of sail racing, and by the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association, this region's governing body, in recognition of his long years of service.Scott received US SAILING's most prestigious award, the Nathaniel G. Herreshoff Trophy, at US SAILING's annual general meeting in Dearborn, Mich.Then, last Saturday, CBYRA honored him with one of its own highest awards, an honorary life membership, at its annual general meeting in Hampton, Va.The Herreshoff Trophy is awarded each year, by vote of the US SAILING board of directors, to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to sailing in the United States.

The Naval Academy's Robert Crown Sailing Center and the waters of the bay near the mouth of the Severn River were filled with a slightly younger-than-usual crowd of sailors last weekend.More than 110 top high-school-age competitors from across the country convened for the annual Mallory and Cressy Trophy competition, the national championships for high school sailors under the auspices of the Interscholastic Yacht Racing Association.To earn one of the 20 slots competing for the Mallory, the teams had to do well their regional sail-offs.

Guy Jones knows how hard it can be to successfully sail the open ocean. Having sailed since 1973, the Michigan-born Vietnam War veteran has encountered rapidly changing weather, rough waves and navigational duties that have challenged his capabilities as a skipper. However, these have been just choppy waters for a man who has been through much more. Jones, recently captained his 40-foot cutter, Gorgeous Girl, to first place overall and first place in its class in the 14th Marion-Bermuda Cruising Yacht Race from Marion, Mass.

In what has become an annual homecoming for Anne Arundel sailors, the Governor's Cup Yacht Race will begin this afternoon with about 160 boats crowding the Annapolis Harbor and setting sail for St. Mary's City. The longest overnight race on the Chesapeake Bay, the 70-mile Governor's Cup is a chance for the local sailing community to get together in its back yard and show off for friends. "At the starting line, all those guys become our enemies," said Albert Holt of Annapolis, whose 33-foot boat is named Stalker.