2008 Governors Cup

[Jim Seamans]

As always the Governors Cup was a blast. We don't race but attend the party and watch the boats come in. We got down and anchored Friday afternoon from Cobb Island. Several other boats from our area come down to enjoy the festivities. Saturday afternoon Marcella, H36 got in and rafted up with us. One of the racers came in close to us 'Jubilee' with Mark Burrows on it. He hollers over "Hi Mr. Seamans" Mr Seamans??? you really know how to hurt a guy Mark! Make me feel old or what
Jubilee finished second in their class.

Thunderstorms hit us around 10:45p. The cells were going north and south of us so Marcella and I stayed rafted up. MISTAKE! 30kt winds hit us from about 180deg from where anchor was set. This spun us around and heeled us over, my stanchion was under his rub rail. We were sitting on the side pushing off to get the fenders back into place. We realized we had dragged about 200ft. At that point we broke the raft and re-anchored. The storms were short and over in about 40 minutes.

Who says you can't have fun.

Jim
S/V Java

 

[tcbro]

Donnybrook

Well, I see Donnybrook is in her usual place of honor.

 

[capn jim]

with a handicap of (-78)

i guess there's a good chance you'll get that spot.
btw; tom we still have the cleat seat. never know when it might be needed again.

 

[Warren Milberg]

Jim: You have the right idea!

Just go to the party and forget the race! I did the Governor's Cup twice and probably will not do another one. First one was hot and no wind all night. Got eaten alive by mosquitoes the size of small birds. We were miserable when we dragged into St Mary's. Second race we had wind, but got snagged in a pound net that was unlit. We had to go into the water to cut the boat free. Some of the net was anchored with wire and we also used bolt cutters. Took 3 hours. We having fun yet? I like the idea of just going to the party!

 

[filthy liberal scum]

warren; we may have found the same net!

was it per chance about 7nm north of point lookout on the western shore? one governor's cup we did we were sailing south, hard on the wind, in full moonlight and the helmsman at the time said to me "i hear birds" i said we're not that close to shore that we would be hearing birds. so we got out the big "Q" lite and started shining it forward and lo and behold not 50yd in front of us was an unlit pound net dead ahead and a bird sitting on each pole. there are literally thousands of these things on the bay, many unlit. and of course the cg and marine police don't keep track of the unlit ones. I've heard that some waterman have taken to putting steel cables on the top of them to keep rec boaters from breaking them. You're not the first one to get tangled in one of these things.

 

[filthy liberal scum]

the governor's cup has the wrong name !!!!!!!!!!

It should be called the frustration cup! historically winds for the start are winds out of the south. moving either west or easterly by about 10 to 15 deg. then in the early morning hours you make the turn up the Potomac river to a broad reach when you pop the chute. then when you get to the st Mary's river it goes behind and the wind dies. we did the cup for about 8 or 9 years.
for the first few years we seemed to finish middle of out fleet and about 50 or so overall.
one of the later years we had always been chasing a boat out of middle river, but just couldn't seem to beat, (a Pearson 30, named "not Bob's") this particular year we were under chute going up the st Mary's and lo and behold there in front of us not more than 150 yds was "not bob" we were jubilant, we knew he owed us 15 minutes in time so we had him beat for a change. then i, the skipper said the expletive deleted ("oh f--k")the wind literally was dying not 20yds off his stern. mind you we were only 3NM from the finish. as we then spent the next 2 hrs to finish we then went from winning our class to a 9 or 10 in our class. later when results were posted it was revealed that "not bob won best of race, on corrected time" so close but so far.
our last race we finally got our silver. we refer it to the one more beer race. once again we were about 3 or 4 NM from the finish. becalmed and not making any head way up river. we were about to bag it. then one of the crew said "OK lets have one more beer, if the wind doesn't fill in we"ll bag it" it did fill and we did finish.
we finished 5Th in a class of 34 boats. the four in front of us owed us time of at least 95 seconds/NM.
so once again the major problem was the dying wind in the am and a high handicap relative to the rest of the fleet.
the major problem as i see it relative to the declining number of entries is that the race now caters exclusively to low handicapped boats ie those that have a handicap of 150 or lower for spin classes and 100 or lower for non-spin class.
it will continue to decline unless the committee changes the venue. start the higher handicapped boats first and shorten the course for them.
our last major bay race was the Solomon Islands race. they started higher handicap boats first and shortened our course by 10NM vs low handicappers.
BTW; we won our class of 43 boats and that's it until the gov cup committee changes something so that we have a shot at finishing the race.
added; the solomons race entries are on the up swing.
this years entries for the gov cup were down to 130 boats, from 149 for last year.

 

[tcbro]

Hey Jim...

Thought you might be interested in this. Danny M (a friend of mine) sold Knot Bob's 2 weeks ago. He worked out a deal with the new owner who is fairly new to sailing. Danny will continue to race on Wed. nights for the rest of this series and the new owner will be added to the crew. That way Danny still gets to finish the series and the new owner gets some serious sailing lessons in his new boat from the guy who has been sucessfully racing it for a while. It's a win/win situation.

When I crewed on your boat (I was on for the "One Last Beer" race) we used to chase Haiku, also out of Middle River. That was John L. He sold Haiku a few years ago (I have no idea where it went) and together with his son bought Still-a-Gorilla. I understand they've been doing fairly well with it.

Both of these guys are out of Glenmar Sailing Association, Middle River MD

 

[Warren Milberg]

For Capn Jim re pound nets

Yep, that sounds like the same sucker that snared us. Now get this, I was told by some DNR policmen some time later that if you damage a pound net that has been registered with the DNR, you are responsible for paying for the repairs to it. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight!

 

[filthy liberal scum]

warren; i could live with that!

IF THE SUCKER WAS LIGHTED AS ITS SUPPOSED TO BE BY LAW.

 

[filthy liberal scum]

TOM

I completely forgot about Haiku. we did however beat them on a regular basis. maybe 50% of the time. they were also some very stiff competition.
Holly is kind of so so about the boat, says she wasn't necessarily going to buy a boat right now but if a good one came up she'd consider it. i guess she isn't actively looking.

 

[Dan Johnson]

Hey Jim & Tom...

either of you guys planning to do the "Bay Jam" race coming up next weekend?

 

[tcbro]

Hi Dan,

I crewed on Jim's boat mostly and maybe 1 or 2 more. I think Jim has pretty much retired from racing so I guess I have as well.

 

[filthy liberal scum]

Dan; we've done the bayjam a couple of times.

great racing and super party. however this year it appears that there won't be any rafting up at the bulkhead. we would love to do it but we have other commitment for that weekend. as tom mentioned we've pretty much retired from racing. its a dollar thing. most of our racing sails are pretty much trash now and i just can't justify shelling out another approximately 6 or 7 grand for a couple new racing sails. we do occasionally do a cruising class race. phrf racing also is a big time commitment, which we just don't have anymore. would love to do a couple in the future but only as non-spin or cruising class. mostly now its just my wife and i as crew and maybe a pick-up crew of maybe one or two.