Southern California sailmaker and multiple world champion skipper Dave Ullman gives his E Scow his full attention at the all-star invitation-only 50th Anniversary Blue Chip
A sport of idiosyncracies – Part II
Traditional boat types, if not traditional boats, but a very modern gathering of skippers. And then an even more modern winner. Dobbs Davis reports from Pewaukee
An invitational format to a sailing event is usually associated with the World Match Racing Tour, or some other specialised event where the stakes are high, there’s a glare of media lights and the pressure is on to perform. Invited skippers are focused like laser beams on doing well to enhance their reputations, their financial health and the opportunity to be invited back again in the future.
But this is not so at the Blue Chip… here it’s about good clean fun.
Every year for half a century the E Scow Blue Chip regatta has invited prominent
and accomplished skippers from all manner of classes and events – from Moths to the America’s Cup – to compete against their class’s finest for an amiable long weekend of E Scow competition on Pewaukee Lake in Wisconsin.
The so-called ‘Mystery Guest’ tradition has been a clever promotion by the organ- isers not only to excite the class members who have earned their right to compete at the Blue Chip by winning their fleet champion ships, but also over time build prestige points among the guests who have had some prominent peers preceding them. In other words, to get invited to the Blue Chip has become an honour in itself. Looking at the past roster of these guests, it reads like a Who’s Who of competitive sailing, representing a cross- section of America’s most talented sailors, with the occasional foreigner thrown in for variety (eg Spithill and Coutts have both been to the Blue Chip… but neither has won). Few other events or classes have managed to assemble such talent in one place at one regatta, because it draws from more than just a single ‘pinnacle’ arena, like the Cup, the Olympic classes, the Volvo, the Stars, match racing and so on – this event draws talent from them all. So just to be invited to the Blue Chip is
indeed a great honour in itself. One could envision how the guest feels when making the drive out through the countryside to the venue at Pewaukee Lake. Nestled among the corn fields and rolling terrain, this rather small lake with pontoon boats moored in front of the homes lining its shores seems innocent enough, and the small cinder block building of a yacht club tucked in the trees is decidedly not an upscale institution. One could imagine a newcomer thinking on arrival ‘How hard could this be?’
Then you look at the boats in the parking lot on their trailers: all are per- fectly rigged and prepared, sails are rolled and crisp, there’s not a speck of stain or dirt or smudge anywhere, and at 8am people are already milling around prepar- ing for the battle ahead, getting boats ready for ramp-launching even at this early hour for an 11am start.
Hmmm, maybe this will not be so easy after all.
Then, to break the tension, there’s an ungodly crashing sound, the sound that curdles the blood of anyone who’s spent hours preparing a boat for racing. While backing the boat trailer down the ramp, Chris Jewett, owner of M-3 Stiffler’s Mom (there’s a curious convention on the inland
SEAHORSE 35
ALL IMAGES SHARON GREEN
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