35968 Scow Fall Winter - Inland Lake Yachting Association

PAGE 10
by Gary Jobson
It was one of those magic starts at the starboard end of the
line. Thirty seconds later we had our A Scow some 10 lengths
ahead of the other 27 boats in the Inland Championship. Nice!
The wind on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin was shifty. We tacked
frequently. It was quite a challenge heeling the 38’ boat to the
precise angle to maximize speed. Just behind, two long time
scow veterans John Porter and Rob Evans came charging up
while battling each other for the lead in the regatta. It was a
unique viewpoint for me to watch the best sailors in the
Midwest work their
magic in one of the
fastest one-design
classes in the world.
Their impressive
skills have been
fine-tuned for
decades. At the
windward mark we
were third just
behind John and
Rob. We set huge
asymmetrical
spinnakers and took
off. Or should I say,
they took off and we
tried to keep up.
After many
years of talking about sailing I have been frequently asked,
“What is the best boat to sail?” My usual answer is to talk
about the attributes of a variety of boats. But after steering an
A Scow in a full regatta with light, moderate and heavy winds
I have made up my mind. The A Scow is the best boat I have
sailed.
The competition in this class is first rate. John Porter and
his brother Brian are consistently at the top of any fleet they
race in, including the Melges 24 class. Their long time friend
Harry Melges was aboard for the Inlands as mainsail trimmer.
But in race 5 of this 6 race regatta, they had their hands full.
Lake Minnetonka, MN’s Evans held a 5 point advantage. The
lead in race 5 shifted back and forth between Evans and
Porter. In the end Porter won and Evans finished second. We
hung on for a (they tell me) respectful 9 th . At this point Porter
was four points back.
PRO Ken Legler started the final race in very light wind.
There was no time for a match race. Porter was over at the
port end and had to restart. Now well behind, he bore off and
started reaching to find clear wind. Evans was in good shape.
Racing along the shoreline, Porter’s A Scow looked like
an optical illusion it was moving so much faster than the rest
of the 27 boats. Within minutes the local Lake Geneva crew
SCOW SLANTS
FALL/WINTER 2006
Scows as seen from a different slant
The ILYA Championship Regatta received coverage in Sailing World via Gary Jobson, who skippered a
Class A One Design, and via Dave Powlison, who shared the helm of a C Scow. Their perspectives on
the Inland Lake Scows are reprinted below with permission of Sailing World and Dave Powlison.
The Speedy A Scows
Mr. and Mrs. Gary Jobson chatted
with LGYC's and US SAILING's Rules
guru, Bill Bentsen. (photo by Ellen
Bentsen)
see Speedy A Scows, page 35
C is For Century
by Dave Powlison
Among the sailing communities in the Midwest states of
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, political affiliations aren’t
represented by red or blue colors on a map. Rather, they’re
defined by letters of the alphabet. MC is for Independents, who
like the do-it-all nature of the singlehanded scow. Large
program guys—those who might favor trickle-down economics—gravitate
toward the biggest boats, with an A or an E on
their sails. Then there’s the C crowd—whose straightforward
approach is a perfect match for the scow world’s hardworking,
everyday citizens.
At Lake Geneva this past August, 81 C Scows celebrated
the class’s 100th anniversary, sailing in the week long 2006
Inland Lake Yachting Association (ILYA) Championships on
Lake Geneva, Wis., in early August. Lake Geneva, home to
scow builder Melges Boatworks, is a small body of water an
hour or so northwest of Chicago; three and a half laps around a
one-mile course was needed to meet the class-prescribed
course length of 7 miles.
Inland lake sailing in August means light air. So it wasn’t
surprising that as the winds slowly diminished over the course
of the first race, Sam
Rogers and crew
Jamie Kimball’s
primary competition
for first place wasn’t
another scow, but
rather the clock
ticking inexorably
toward the time limit.
“We were patient the
whole race,” says
Rogers, 25, an excollegiate
sailor from
Hobart and William
Gary Reiter's Old Glory (C-21) was a
perfect entry for the C Scow Centennial
Regatta (photo by Ellen Bentsen)
Smith College and now a Melges Boatworks employee. “All of
a sudden, halfway up the last beat it went totally flat. Every
three minutes, I’m asking Jamie, ‘How much time do we have
left?’ Then with about 10 minutes left, we saw this little puff
off the shoreline, and that gave us enough hope, and we finally
got the boat moving and beat it by about a minute and 40
seconds.”
Aboard another boat in the fleet, that same puff helped
cure a case of mixed emotions. Earlier in the race, as they had
rounded the final windward mark, Sam’s father Peter, and
skipper Buddy Melges, had been staring at nearly 70 transoms.
As they watched the wind speed drop, the time limit seemed
the only possible way to avoid a disastrous start to the regatta.
see C is for Century, page 33