Woodwind is First Schooner to Finish in the Twelfth Annual

The 20th Annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race...

October 15, 2009

Cold, Wet, Fast Racing as a Nor' Easter blows us down the Bay

The wind was howling and a cold rain fell on the schooner fleet of around fifty boats. The schooners are split into classes mainly by a formula, but to keep it simple, let's just call it speed & length. Class AA (the big traditional schooners) and Class A (our class, which are smaller, lighter, and not as traditionally rigged) start at the same time on the starting line, and finish 127 nautical miles down the bay at Thimble Shoal Light's latitude line. The Class B & C schooners finish at Windmill Point Light's latitude line (80 nm) unless they want to race for the perpetual trophy and bragging rights which is to the bigger boat's finish line at Thimble Shoal.

Lisa Carr took this photo of the start from Woodwind II, the spectator boat. Woodwind, the one that was racing, was far ahead of this fleet of schooners.

The wind was about 15-25 knots from the NE for our start. This year was a different start than years past. There was only one committee boat, and the start extended from that boat to a latitude line across the Bay. We had a terrific start and put all four sails up immediately after crossing the starting line. We were probably one of the first schooners over the starting line, well on the western shore side. About an hour into the start, we raised the 1.2 ounce spinnaker that we borrowed from Nicole Weaver who fortunately crewed for us as well. We sped down the bay at a speed of nine to ten knots. Pride of Baltimore II was following behind us and Juno, a gorgeous private schooner built in 2003, was behind her- also under spinnaker. Virginia was further behind than the other two boats. We were holding our own as dark fell upon the fleet. Pride of Baltimore II was starting to pull ahead as the wind funneled more directly down the Bay  in a more northerly direction.

Through the night, we had to jibe  several times as we headed down the Bay.  Once for fish traps, once for a freighter that tried to run us off the "road", and once to try and keep ahead of some of the shifty breezes. It was a really dark night, and the phosphorescence churned up by the whitecaps looked like little icebergs floating on top of the ink black waves. There were no stars in the sky, just rain, and an icy breeze. We kept hearing Pride, Virginia and Juno talking with each other on the VHF radio and realized we were close to them by the finish. We ended up finishing the race in about 15 hours.  This was 43 minutes behind Pride, 6 minutes behind Juno, and 3 minutes ahead of Virginia. Roger Worthington's schooner "Prom Queen" (seriously, this is the name of his boat- his dinghy is named "Runner Up") finished an hour later but corrected over all of the schooners to win first overall (full results, click here), while we placed second overall for the entire fleet!

Thanks to a fabulous crew made up of Ken, Jen, Ellen, Rai Muhlbauer (navigator), Katie Fitzgerald, Jocelyn Craig, Scott Schopman and guest crew Nicole Weaver with guests John Haller, Paul Dills, and Tom and Mary Conner.

Call to reserve a spot for next year 410-263-1981
October 13-17, 2010
Previous Schooner Races
Official Schooner Race Site