The Budd Inlet Star Fleet's Black

Star Regatta drew 21 teams this year, including teams from Gig Harbor, Seattle, and Portland. There were three wooden Stars including Alcor, Bill Brosius’ 77-year old entry. Eighteen teams competed in the Classic Star class, reserved for fiberglass Stars under sail number 7100. Saturday provided most of the

stories (tall tales?) for the regatta, with a couple of squalls blowing through at 25 to 28 knots. John DeMeyer, the PRO eventually canceled further racing after just two races. In the mean time, one boat was dismasted, another almost so, a main and a jib blown out and probably the rest of our sails a bit baggier now than before the racing started. Derek DeCouteau and Linda

Koran won the first race in 12 knots of wind. This was before the first squall, but they held it together for a second in the high wind race as well. Dennis Clark and Dan Falk took the second race amidst the second squall of the day. Eight boats either retired with damage or ran for home instead of competing in the second race. I personally finished second to last on that race despite an excellent start. A couple of penalty turns in 25 knots of wind sent me to the back of the fleet or whatever was left of it. But at least my boat was still intact. I was very happy to see further racing canceled for the day. As bad as the weather was on

Saturday, the opposite was true on Sunday. The wind was out of the northwest, very steady and blowing between 7 and 10 knots all day. You couldn’t ask for more perfect weather for Stars. In fact, I don’t think we had to shift the marks once all day. Five races were run including my favorite course, the windward-leeward with a finish to windward. In the end, Derek DeCouteau and

Linda Koran proved once again to be the class act of the fleet with their third over-all victory in four events. They only won one race, but were consistently at the front of the pack with their worst race being a 6th. Dennis Clark and Dan Falk of Gig Harbor gave them a run for the money winning three of the races, but couldn’t quite overcome a poor finish in race one. In the end they were three

points behind Derek and Linda. In the wooden boat division, Phillip

Wise and Tim Cleary cleaned up with 5 victories and a second. The fact that they bailed on the second race in the high wind didn’t matter at all in the end. Jim Findley and Dave Serdar ended up in second in a borrowed boat. It most likely would have been a much closer race had they been sailing their own boat, a proven fast boat. Unfortunately, they lost their

adding a six-pack of Full Sail Ale to their prize. Norm Smit won the Order of the Mangled Mast trophy for breaking yet another mast, a good one this time. We’re contemplating renaming it the Norm Award since his name will soon be engraved on it four times. I wanted to add a prize for the most penalty turns but couldn’t find a silly enough trophy. Little did it matter because I would have won it myself anyway with six turns.

Black Star Regatta 2010

rudder on the way out to the practice race on Friday evening. Cudos to them for sailing all the way back to the marina using only the sails to steer with. Racing ended on Sunday with a race

back to the marina with a six pack on line for the winner. This was probably the most competitive race of the day with all the boats coming across the line within a few minutes from first to last. Apart from the trophies for the

race winners, there were a couple of additional trophies. Jim Findley won the award for the most damaged boat for losing his rudder. Unfortunately, this is the second year in a row that he’s had this distinction. His trophy consisted of a stuffed monkey holding some duct tape. Then there was the DFL trophy which went to Alex Bromen and Joel Rett. I personally contributed to their demise by wiping out in a squall right in front of them and taking out their spreader in race #2, so I softened the blow by

All in all, it was another great event

with very competitive racing at one end and me doing circles at the other. A very special thanks goes to Myra Downing for putting together another great raffle on Saturday night. The final tally isn’t done yet, but I believe we brought in over a thousand dollars. Ten percent of this will go to support youth sailing and the rest will go toward maintaining and fueling the runabout, used by both the dingy and Star fleets, and paying some of the expenses in running the Star Fleet. A lot of people helped out on this event, which made my job as the event coordinator really easy. If I tried to list everyone, I’m sure I’d offend someone by leaving them out. So, hopefully it would suffice if I just thanked everyone involved for helping make this such a special event. You know who you are. I really appreciate everyone involved.

by John Thompson, Star #4078 photo by Jan Anderson

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