ANOSOV REPEATS AS SOUTHERN CHAMPION
Arthur Anosov (5527), the 2009 National Champion, successfully defended his Windmill Southern Title at the Davis Island YC November 28-29. Reflecting the growing Windmill activity in Florida, a wonderful fleet of 16 boats turned out for the event. Unfortunately (and atypically) the wind failed to cooperate and only 4 races (3 including only one time around the W-L course) were completed. However, the races were very close and produced a different winner in each event! Additionally, the fleet had plenty of time to talk, look at fittings on each other's boats and look forward to the coming 2010 sailing season!
The first race (and the only one with two laps) saw John Jennings and Julie Valdez in command with superb upwind sailing and maintaining control downwind as they found the good shifts and puffs to stay ahead of Anosov and the Ethan/Trudy Bixby team. New Windmillers Dede and Beau Plessner (showing that one can learn from just working for Ethan!) sailed a great race to take 4th ahead of Dave Ellis and Adam Wright.
The second race found light and very shifty winds up the first leg with Lon Ethington and Meg Gimmi playing these just perfectly to reach the weather mark first. The Bixbys were around second but could not overtake Lon and Meg ont he run to the leeward mark which bacame the finish when the race committe shortened the course. Anosov took 3rd ahead of Jennings while class webmaster Alan Taylor (sailing a borrowed/demo boat arranged by Dan Fontaine) and Sue Nuyda moved up from an opening 14th to round out the top 5. In spite of some waiting, no wind appear and the RC sent the fleet in for dinner. This left Jennings, Bixby and Anosov all with 5 points after two races.
Sunday saw just enough breeze to get out to the race area after which the committee set a one-lap course. Anosov sliced through the fleet on port tack and held a long port all the way to the layline; he was followed by Roy and Geoffrey Sherman who held second while the rest of the fleet drift in a fairly compact mob towards and eventually over the finish line. Jennings remained in contention by taking 3rd ahead of Taylor while Ellis beat Bixby for 5th. The fleet waited for over an hour and some boats sailed in but finally a 4th race was held. Bixby came back to win this race and Jennings took 2nd but needed to put a boat between himself and Anosov and could not do this when Anosov was 3rd ahead of Ellis, Sherman and Dan Fontaine. Thus the final results found Anosov, Jennings, Bixby, Ellis and Ethington in the top 5. No one spent the entire regatta at the back of the fleet as every single one of the 16 entrants placed 9th or better in at least one race!
The class had a delightful time and looks forward to a bit more wind at the Midwinters in March.
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