Wife and Husband Championship

Submitted by Melissa on Fri, 02/27/2004 - 15:39
My husband and I purchased our Scot a year and a half ago. Before that, we used to rent a Zuma a few times a summer. We took our first sailing lessons last May for a week. We learned a lot, since they were private and we had great instructors. We were even able to tag along in the club's Saturday race. However, that was our only experience racing. Would it be crazy for us to enter the Wife and Husband event? We don't have a sailing club around here to practice racing with and we actually wouldn't expect to win. I'm more concerned about if we would be getting in over our heads. We can sail the Scot rather decently (although probably not very competitively amoung experienced Scot owners) and we are getting pretty good at flying the spinnaker. It seems like it would be fun. In fact, the existence of the Wife and Husband Championship was one reason we decided on a Scot. Any comments? Melissa FS5047
‹ Midwinter Warmups Championship & Challenger Division ›

Comments

Melissa, by all means go.

Submitted by Barry277 on Sun, 02/29/2004 - 22:54.
Melissa, by all means go. You will probably learn more in a week hanging around and sailing with other Scot sailors than you would in a year out by yourselves. Expect to have fun, place no expectations, and enjoy sailing your Scot, and enjoy the company..it doesn't get any better, and the experience will give you an edge next year!

Melissa, You would not be crazy at all to sail the 2004 Wife-Hu

Submitted by fs2162 on Wed, 03/10/2004 - 14:51.
Melissa, You would not be crazy at all to sail the 2004 Wife-Husbands!! My husband and I sailed our first W-H after owning our Scot for about 1-1/2 years. There are two fleets - Championship and Challenger. Sometimes they even have a non-spinnaker fleet. If you like to fly your spinnaker but don't have much racing experience, the Challenger fleet would be your best choice. Our first W-H was at Tom's River, NJ, and we were quite intimidated by the number of boats and the "big" water. (we're inland lake sailors) We sailed in the Challenger fleet. The first beat of the first race we were in about the middle of the fleet. When we rounded the windward mark, it became obvious that some of the wives did not normally sail with their husbands. The spinnakers came out and all "you-know-what" broke loose! My husband and I normally sail together, and we were fairly competent with the spinnaker. We rounded the mark, popped the chute, and passed most of the fleet. So, you may be surprised at how well you do! The main thing is to remember to have fun regardless of how you finish, and that is pretty easy to do at W-H. Wife-Husbands is one of our favorite regattas. We have made it to each of the last 6 and plan to make the 2004 W-H on Lake St. Clair. It is a very fun regatta and unique to the Scot class. The sailing competition is great, but the overall atmosphere is much less intense than most national regattas. Hope to meet you at W-H in June!! Susie

Thanks for the encouragement! We're starting to make plans to

Submitted by Melissa on Sun, 03/14/2004 - 00:42.
Thanks for the encouragement! We're starting to make plans to go. We even already asked my parents if they could watch our son for the weekend. Now, they are so excited they won't let us back down. [;)] We took our lessons just east of Detroit at Portage Lake, so we are familiar with the trip out there. At least this time, we've purchased a vehicle that is more suited to towing our boat. We've never sailed on such a large lake before, though. They even mention there is a small current on the lake. Sounds interesting! Now I'm getting all excited. If it would just warm up so we can get out on the water again... Melissa ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FS5074