Over the past weekend the Michigan Sailing Team
competed in the annual Timme Angsten Memorial Regatta hosted by the Chicago
Yacht Club. The event serves as the MCSA Fall Championship and is the last
regatta of the MCSA season. The team left Ann Arbor Friday and arrived at the
home of our host, Alice Martin, who lives near Belmont Harbor in Chicago and is
an alumni. Our team was very grateful for the excellent accommodations provided
by Alice for our seven sailors.
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| L-to-R: Seago, Sloan, Smolenyak, Wallace, Etheridge, Ramos, Ismail |
On Saturday Morning the team arrived at Chicago and was
greeted by 13 other MCSA teams vying for the season championship. The conditions
couldn’t have been more different from last year. Temperatures were hovering
around 30 degrees, a 10-20 knot northwesterly breeze and partly cloudy skies provided
sailors with winter sailing conditions. The northwesterly breeze caused
extremely shifty and puffy conditions because the wind was coming on an angle
from the shore. This caused shifts up to 90 degrees! An even more challenging
condition facing the competitors was the ice forming on the boats. Because of
the below freezing temperatures, everything on the boats became coated with
ice: sheets, blocks, main-sheet ratchets, sailors etc. This obviously made
sailing very difficult so after 3 hours and 4 races in each division, the day was ended. After the first day Michigan was leading the regatta with 17 pts,
with Wisconsin close behind with 18 pts. and Minnesota in third with 27 pts.
When the team arrived on Sunday, the temperatures were
around the twenty degree mark and the forecast wasn’t calling for any increase
in temperature for at least a day. Also, the boats were still covered in ice
from the day before. This meant at 11 am on Sunday, the race committee and
judges led by George Griswald decided to end the regatta. This meant that
Michigan won the Timme Angsten for the second year in a row for the first time
in the 67 year history of the event! Our A division team consisting of Alex
Ramos ’15 and Karinne Smolenyak '14 ended up in 2nd place with 10 points, and our B division team of Ryan Seago '14 and Elizabeth Wallace '15 finished in 1st with 7 points. Go Blue!
-Ryan Seago '14
