Monday, November 25, 2013

Back-to-Back Timme Angsten Champs

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.
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