Brothers Mike and Bob Kirkman and the crew of the J/120 Hot Ticket are used to pressure. In fact, they’re better under pressure, says Bob Kirkman, and today’s outcome in Detroit’s ultra-competitive one-design keelboat class stands as a perfect example. After two days of battling for the overall class lead against their rivals on Charlie Welsh’s Funtech, Mike Kirkman drove the team to a runaway race win in the first of the day and then sealed the title in the next.
“We knew they were going to be covering us and just used boatspeed, jumped out and got ahead in the first race to lead all the way around that one,” says Bob Kirkman.
Hot Ticket’s third in the second race to Funtech fifth was enough to guarantee the win by 3 points.
“We gave up a lot of points to cover them in that race, but that’s what it’s all about. Racing in this class is always tough and the Funtech team is a great rival. Like last year, it came down to the last day, which is how we like it.”
A similar battle had been playing out in the J/111 fleet as well between Brad Kimmel and Steve Young’s Diablo and Kevin and Seth Young’s Black Seal, and while the two teams were mere boatlengths apart for the first two legs of the day’s first race, a mechanical failure with a forestay fitting on Black Seal on the third leg had them scrambling to keep the mast upright. They were able to reconnect the forestay and finish the race, but it came with a cost of 6 points. Diablo won the final race to win the series with five wins over nine races.
Meanwhile, William Widner and his talented crew on the J/35 Mr. Bill’s Wild Ride sailed to its fifth consecutive race win to earn the class’s Great Lakes Championship title. The growing J/35 fleet, of which Widner is a longstanding member, produced incredibly close racing behind Widner with second through fourth places boats only separated by 5 points after seven races.
Chris Benedict’s Shape solidified its Santana 35 class North American Championship title after trading race wins with Andrew Morlan’s Avatar. After seven races there were only 2 points between these friendly rivals in the classic 35-footer.
While the final races of the offshore circle were ultimately abandoned as the wind died later in the afternoon, the regatta’s smaller one-design classes reached their maximums with Dan Cheresh’s team on the S2 7.9 Extreme 2 easily winning the series by an 8-point margin over John Spierling’s Rebel. Extreme 2 won seven of eight races.
In similar fashion, Peter McClennan’s Gamecock team closed out the series with a 10-point win in the Melges 24 fleet. McClennan, of Newport, Rhode Island, sails about 200 days a year, and has been the top team on this year’s Melges 24 winter racing circuit, but the fast-learning helmsman continues to refine his technique it the boat and this weekend picked up a few key pointers from his all-star tactician Jeremy Wilmot.
“He’s the best at moding,” McClennen says. “And this week he changed a few things I’m used to. I always drive seated, but he forced me to stand up downwind so I can see better, which was true. In the big breeze yesterday, we were pushing it really hard downwind and hit like 18 knots. The cool thing about this venue was the waves. A lot of the other places where we race the Melges 24, the water’s generally flat. So, I hadn’t sailed the 24 in waves like that in a more of a year.”
The Cal 25s, which raced Saturday and Sunday only, were a small but mighty fleet that was no match for the expertise of the father/son team of Paul and Ross Nuechterlein’s Never Alone. With Paul on the bow and Ross on the helm, they got around the racecourse fast and clean, winning all but the final race. Their class win put them in the running for the regatta’s overall title and a berth at the Caribbean Championship, and at the end of the day, the team earned the berth for the championship in the BVI in October.
Paul, who bought the Cal 25 to race with his friends and his son, says there’s not much to making the Cal 25 go fast other than new racing sails, and a simple tactical approach to every race: “If you can make it to the weather mark in only two tacks, do it,” he says. “You don’t want to take these boats. What it takes are some good sails and good people.”
Nuechterlein’s tactician and friend, Ron Sherry, says the team invested in the prep for the regatta, participating in provided morning weather briefings, improved their jib-sheeting technique and put race electronics on the boat. “We put it all together and it really worked well,” he says. “The sails from Quantum especially made a big difference.”
On winning the Caribbean championship berth, the team were excited and looking forward to it. “I’ve been to the Caribbean three times and they were the best times of my life,” Nuechterlein says, “so I’m looking forward to going down there and having a little fun.”
After a wild and windy distance race on Saturday the regatta’s ORC and PHRF fleets set off on a kinder and gentler long course that had a balance of upwind and downwind legs. Jake Thomas’ JPK 10.80, Smoke Show, Saturday’s ORC A race winner was plenty fast in the moderate wind as well and won today’s race by nearly 2 minutes over its much larger competition—Tim LaRiviere’s Italia 14.98 Eagle One.
“We’re one of the smallest boats, and certainly the shortest mast of our fleet, so it was all about just getting free and getting clear air,” says Smoke Show tactician Andy Camarada. “The nice thing with the long courses is that we can get separation and sail our own race which we were able to do again today.”
While winds in today’s race average only 10 knots, Camarada says the boat was plenty quick, but not nearly as exciting as Saturday’s blistering distance race. “It’s crazy how much sail area this boat can carry. We just keep piling more sail area on it and the boat just goes faster. The boat is stable at speed, has a lot of power, and we have a great team to manage it.”
Chuck Storms’ Italia 9.8 won its second distance race to win ORC Class B and William Parkolab’s Kirby 25 Go Train was the top ORC C team with a win yesterday and a second today.
In the PHRF fleets, clear air off the start was the key as well and that’s how Jim Weyand’s turbo 1D35 got away to its second distance race win. Same for Harald Kolter’s Hobie 33 Das Boot, which won the windy one and posted a second in today’s race to win PHRF Class B.
“Win the start and extend, and we do well at that,” Kolter says. “Our approach was to get the windward end at the start and be the first boat to tack. It’s better for us to go for clear air and let everyone else play. With this boat we need to sail our own angles because it doesn’t sail upwind like other boats—I need to foot more.
“Today I felt comfortable with where we were and we sailed our own boat for a clean race, and yesterday was all I bargained for. It was the windiest day I’ve ever sailed in this boat. Before I didn’t have much confidence sailing this boat in that much wind, but now I do.”
Brian Geraghty’s C&C35 MKI Siochail won today’s race to win in the tiebreaker with Alan Tecmire’s Tec Offensive in PHRF Class C.
The regatta’s Youth Keelboat Invitational series also came down to a tiebreaker after a second day of racing on the Detroit River, this time using the Ultimate 20’s spinnakers. The racing was fast and furious again, and after 15 races, it was Macatawa Bay YC’s juniors with the win.
“We really focused on learning about the boat ahead of time, reading up on it online,” says the team’s skipper Lucas Nykamp. “We studied the currents and the waterway, and just wanted to go out and put it all on the line.”
Nykamp and his teammate Cameron Bert race VX One sportboats at their home club, and experience with the high-performance asymmetric spinnaker boat contributed to their win. “Having the asymmetric sailing experience really helped out,” says Nykamp. “The racing on the river was tricky and fast paced. It was 70-percent the start. We focused on having a clear lane and space from the other boats so we’d be able to make the first move.”
