2022 Vintage Nationals
This years Vintage Nationals were sailed at a very picturesque site in Honey Brooke, PA. The winds at this site were occasionally light, but tended to stay in the mid to high teens, with gusts into the low 20’s. I think there were over 25 skipperswith over 70 boats competing.
Four events were sailed over 3 days and skippers from the MmMYC were registered to sail in three of the events. In the interest of time and space, I will only speak to the events that were sailed by MmMYC skippers.
The first event sailed by club members was the 50” Schooner class. There were nine skippers in this class. From MmMYC, Jim Linville, Alain Jousse and Cliff Martin all came prepared to compete with their Schooners, or so we thought. Our Schooners had spent some time on the water before the Nationals, but even with the best of preparations, the unexpected happens. The first skipper to fall to fate was Cliff Martin, who started having sail winch problems at the beginning of first race and completely lost his winch after three races. Alain Jousse was able to hang on for a few more races as he started having rig issues that took him out. Jim Linville was able to hang in there through most of the race but tuning issues kept him in the back half of the fleet.
The next event sailed by club members was the Vintage-36class. MmMYC skippers were Herb Dreher, Cliff Martin, Rick Gates, Rick Laird, Jim Linville and Alain Jousse. The racing was very competitive and the winds made it very challenging for these smaller yachts. In the end, Herb Dreher came in 1st with his Comet-36, Cliff Martin came in 2nd with his newly builtRiptide-36, Rick Gates came in 6th with his Peterson double-ender, Rick Laird came in 15th with his Chico II, and Jim Linville came in 18th with his Riptide-36. Unfortunately, Alain Jousse was unable to compete due to winch problems.
The last events were sailed on Sunday. They were, Traditional Vintage Marblehead’s, Vintage High Flyer Marblehead’s and Vintage Classic Marblehead’s. The Traditional VintageMarblehead’s sailed as one fleet, with Vintage High Flyer and Classic Marblehead’s sailing as a separate fleet. Start times for the two fleets were staggered. with the Vintage High Flyer/Classic Marblehead’s starting first. In the Traditional VM class, Rick Laird sailed his Madcap to 7th place. Alain Jousse had some technical issues, but was able to sail his Magic Dragon II to a 13th place, and Jim Linville, who also had some issues, was able to sail to a 17th place. In the Vintage High Flyer class, Herb Dreher sailed his Sunwind to a 1st place, and Cliff Martin was able to sail his Magic Dragon I to 2nd place.
The site was beautiful, the event was well run, and the racing was spirited and challenging. I think it’s fair to say, that the high winds were a contributing factor to some of the issue/problemsencountered by skippers. But hey! That’s racing. All-in-all, I think our club was well represented and I congratulate all of the skippers who took part.
Cliff Martin,
Commodore, MmMYC