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

Match Race Team Takes on Nationals in St. Petersburg

This past weekend, the team sent its MCSA Match Race Qualifying Team to Match Race Nationals in St. Petersburg, FL. The team consisted of seasoned match racers and brothers, Will (‘14) and Chris Cyr (‘16), avid lifetime sailor and racer David Oliver (‘14), and Ansley Semack (‘14), a small-keelboat racer, but new to match racing. The team departed for Florida, Thursday afternoon, arriving that night and staying the weekend with team member Katie Ried (‘15) aunt’s house in Sarasota.

L-to-R: C. Cyr, A. Semack, D. Oliver, W. Cyr

Friday racing began in about 8 to 10 knots of breeze, lightening up all day. The light wind and choppy water made for some difficult conditions. However, the team couldn’t complain much about the 80 degree weather.  A full round robin with the 10 competing teams (1 v 1 matches) finished off Friday’s racing, with Michigan in 9th out of 10th place after beating Wisconsin and Oregon State in two of its matches. Friday evening was spent with the team enjoying a meal out with their host mom and an early bedtime.

Saturday morning brought light wind again that allowed two flights of the Stage 2 repechage to be raced, followed by a four-hour postponement on land while teams waited for the sea breeze to fill in. Finally the breeze came back, building to about 12 knots, and the team went back out to finish its third flight of the day. Michigan won all three of its races against Oregon State, Wisconsin, and Western Florida, seeding them for 7th place qualifying them for the quarterfinals. St. Petersburg Yacht Club hosted a dinner for all competitors that night, which was followed by another early turn-in for the team.

Close Match between Wisconsin and Oregon State

Sunday brought the most intense racing along with the heaviest wind of the weekend, building up to 18 knots. A knock-out series pitted Michigan (7th seed) against St. Mary’s (2nd seed).  After narrowly losing two races in a best of 3 series, Michigan was still in the running for a 5-8th place consolation round. The first race against Stanford was lost when the team failed to complete a penalty kill before crossing the finish line; the second race of the final knock-out series pitted Michigan against Boston College, which ended with a black flag on Michigan, ending racing for the team and placing the team in 8th overall. The team then left sunny Florida and returned early Monday morning to snow-covered Ann Arbor.

 -Ansley Semack '14

Zero Races Completed at Timme's Tune-up

Northwestern Sailing Center

The team traveled to Evanston, IL, on Friday November 15th with two vans and a towing vehicle, which towed two of the team's boats from Baseline Lake. Sixteen Michigan Sailors made the trip to fill up three berths for the annual Timme's Tune-up regatta hosted by Northwestern. Report time was at 8:30 on Saturday morning and after a quick breakfast the team quickly got to work rigging the tow berths before the skippers meeting. A division went out into Lake Michigan with a building 20 knot southerly breeze and 3-4 foot waves. The Race Committee attempted one race but it was abandoned due to the increasing wind, seas, and number of capsizing boats.

Sunday morning's conditions featured even stronger gale force winds and imminent thunderstorms so the Race Committee cancelled the regatta without sailing a single race. After de-rigging the team's boats for the journey back to Ann Arbor, and helping push Michigan Tech's van all the way off the beach, the team headed home. Although there wasn't any racing over the weekend, the team left with fond memories of the trip to Evanston.

-Tom Etheridge '16