Smooth sailing

Sailors find favorable conditions at 35th Governor’s Cup

Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by JESSE YEATMAN The crew of the Meridian, captained by St. Mary’s College senior Jeremy Hutchinson of Minneapolis, lowers its sails after its first in class finish Saturday morning. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by JESSE YEATMAN The Temple of the Wind, captained by Douglas Dykman of Arnold, passes the finish line, marked by the Dove, Saturday morning at St. Mary’s College.

This year, Zaraffa was on its way once again to trouncing the field on Friday evening. But after 1 1⁄2 hours of racing, Zaraffa ran aground on a sandbar, which cost it 40 minutes and ultimately, the win.

‘‘It was mostly a nice night of sailing,” said Jahn Tihansky, coach of the Navy’s offshore sailing team. ‘‘It had some challenging moments, for us a little more challenging than most.”

Zaraffa still managed to be the first boat across the finish line along the shoreline at the St. Mary’s College of Maryland on Saturday morning. But because of the handicap system, finished fourth in the PHRF A-O class with a time of 13 hours, 28 minutes 25 seconds, more than 45 minutes behind the Meridian, the boat raced by the college’s offshore sailing team.

The Meridian finished first in the A-O class with a time of 12:42:30, winning the alumni trophy in the process.

‘‘Conditions were perfect for our boat,” said Nutt Hankins, a crew member on the Meridian and senior biology major at St. Mary’s College. ‘‘We had a great old crew. We’ve all sailed together for a while. We got in our groove and made all of the right tactical decisions.”

Hankins said that the difference between the Meridian finishing first was the ‘‘great minds” of its crew. He said his team had a superior strategy that allowed the Meridian to nab the victory.

‘‘We went the right way,” said Hankins. ‘‘I think our tactics were absolutely flawless. We went into the shallow [water] when the tide was ripping and then cut across the bay when it was slack and then cut across the bay again when it was ripping in our direction. We played it really well.”

The boat with the fastest time among all of the classes was the A-1 class winner, the Valkyrie of Arlington, Va. Skipper David Andril and crew finished with a time of 12:20:55, 19 minutes faster than the second place boat, the Dame Blanche.

‘‘It was a very pleasant evening,” said Andril, a West River resident, whose crew is comprised mostly of engineers and IT professionals. ‘‘The wind was 4-10 knots out of the south. No moon, but the stars were out with a clear sky and flat water.”

This is the second straight win for the Valkyrie, a boat that has always found success in the Governor’s Cup, an event the crew has frequented since 2000.

‘‘We won last year and we were second the year before,” said Andril. ‘‘I’ll just stop recounting our results and let you assume that all of the other ones were consistent with that.”

The Governor’s Cup is one of the few remaining sailing races along the Chesapeake Bay that takes place overnight, a fact that adds a different feel to the race for the sailors. While the aesthetics of racing at night offer some benefits with a beautiful night sky and a respite from the summer heat, racing at night also presents a different set of challenges for serious racers.

At night, it’s often impossible to know how other boats in your class are fairing, leaving the sailors to race without knowing where they might finish until they reach the finish line.

And with the Governor’s Cup, there is a unique problem relating to commercial boats trying to survive with the sudden flood of sailors in the early morning waters.

‘‘There was a lot of radio traffic from freighters and tugs coming out of the bay who were trying to cope with that many boats,” Andril said.

Freighters aside, many of the sailors were pleased with the overall quality of this year’s event, as the weather forecast for the night proved to be inaccurate, allowing for smooth sailing.

‘‘It was great,” said Jim Muldoon, skipper of the Donnybrook and chairman of the St. Mary’s College board of trustees. ‘‘The early weather forecasts were all over the place, so we had no idea what to expect. But we had a consistent breeze until the end and we had competitors within sight of us all the time. ... It was a very nice August night and it was nice to get away from the heat.”