The Rappahannock River was the place to be for racing this October, a feeling that was shared by sailors on about 130 boats who arrived en mass for the Turkey Shoot Regatta. Some, like Helen Quimby’s Avalon II, were still on the hard minus a mast when that feeling took hold, so you can imagine the mad dash to get everything back on board, barrier coat and paint the bottom and back in the water just 2 days before she sailed north. Avalon II rendezvoued with Zatarra on Friday, who provided the crew of Ray and Trica Savoie and Jack and Judi Barnett for the race.

Joran Gendell made this race a stopover event on his cruise up to the Annapolis boat show while Steve Bowen brought Dream On up by trailer. Don Deese keeps one of his boats at Deltaville so he launched that one, Shockwave, on Friday and sailed it upriver. John Haracivet sailed up with Midnight Rider but of course, John makes sailing a very leisurely activity. He just sticks a bean-bag in the corner of the stern pulpit, hits a button on the auto-pilot and then it’s feet up and snooze time.

The Turkey Shoot Regatta, hosted by the Rappahannock River Yacht Club, is one of 27 regional fund-raising events for the National Hospice Alliance. This is the 3rd largest event on the Chesapeake – 130 boats registered, split into 12 fleets. It’s billed as a “classic boat” regatta; the rule is that all boats must be of a design that is at least 25 years old. In recent years Avalon II and Elixir have represented YRYC; this year, they had plenty of company from the York River Yacht Club.

On Friday boats had to declare whether they were racing non-spin, or spinnaker (with 20 sec/mile penalty). Weather forecast at the time suggested NS was the way to go, but on Dream On they have two rules, one of which is “always fly the spinnaker” (the other is “never run out of beer”). Saturday’s race was a 12-mile, 8-leg affair with two triangle laps. They held the spinnaker, barely, on the first two reaching legs but decided it wasn’t doing any good on the second lap so went with a poled-out genoa. The chute went back up on the final run to the finish and Dream On was first in fleet across the line.

Sunday’s format was a pursuit race – boats started in reverse order of their handicaps, which meant that the slowest boat, with an astonishing rating of 501 (picture a 25-ft Nordic Tug with a couple of stubby masts) started over an hour ahead of the fastest-rated boat, which happened to be Midnight Rider, on the 9-mile course. Midnight Rider crossed the start line looking at 130 boats disappearing into the distance, the challenge was to catch and pass them all. That appeared to be daunting, especially as Dream On could be seen in the distant haze racing away under full spinnaker, but Midnight Rider had the speed and boat by boat worked her way through the fleet, passing Avalon II, Elixir and Shockwave on the way. At the finish line Dream On crossed just in front to win their fleet with MR second and a brilliant performance by Shockwave who finished 4th.

Dream On was our star performer in the regatta, but other YRYC boats also made strong showings – Elixir was 3rd in her class, Avalon II 4th, Midnight Rider 5th, and Shockwave 7th. As the overall winner of this regatta, Dream On has earned the right to compete in the Hospice National Regatta, to be held June 5-7 on Lake Ontario.

Quote from Steve Bowen, skipper of Dream On.

“It’s still hard to believe that we pulled this off, considering that we failed to win a single Wednesday night race this year. I like to think that the support and encouragement of so many YRYC members that were there that weekend made the difference!”

Brian Gregory, Race Captain