Jim Jacobs wins Laser Masters - 3rd time Champion

David Hazlehurst on Tuesday September 10, 2002 10:30AM

After four great races on Sunday in 14-16 knots James Jacobs ended up as a third time champion, despite being OCS in the next to last race in which he still got a fourth place finish. There were several capsises Sunday the most notable being Mark Sauders who sailed a perfect race though the last windward mark only to turtle just after starting the downwind leg. This moved Mark from first to at least 21st place, showing us all how much harder it is to right a Laser when it's not heading into the wind. Aside from capsizes there were a number of equipment failures, the most novel being Brad Squires tearing the webbing at the top of his sail. Who says you can't pull a sail down hard with the old cunningham set up? Saturday's races were less demanding and the race committee pulled the plug after three races in 6 and declining knots of wind. All the sailors were happy to see Alain Vincey being towed ashore to start preparing another of his memorable dinners.

There were 39 participants with the other winners being

First Apprentice David Schoene

First Master James Jacob

First Grand Master John Quay

First Great Grand Master Ken Hopkins

First Lady Faye Flam

First Radial Therese Munz

Lack of familiarity with the "Als too cheap" scoring program forced us to develop the results manually. A proven subterfuge to check hand calculated results is to give each participant a copy, after giving out the awards. Any mistakes in others favor are quickly recognised, in this case moving Mike Schmidt the 1998 champion, up from 9th to 4th place. We'll train a local scorer before our next regatta!

James Jacobs is still one championship behend Rob Overton of Hampton YC. Ironically after almost all the visitors had left on Sunday evening visiting cruisers from Hampton YC told us Rob had sailed east to the Azores and is presently cruising off the east coast of Scotland. For his sake I hope he stays out of the water.

One final comment. On two occasions in the '97 - '99 period when Fishing Bay YC hosted the Atlatic Coast Laser Masters Regatta we sailed in the aftermath of hurricanes with less wind than we prefer. We are threatened with a tropical storm in nearby coastal areas Tuesday night-Wednesday morning and judging by the wondeful conditions Monday morning we hit the start of the building winds. Sometimes you get lucky, as were the participants this past weekend. Ask any of them if you want to know why Fishing Bay is a must venue on any Laser sailors list.

The first 15 finishers were

James Jacobs 31 points M1

David Schoene 44 A1

Willard Martin 48 A2

Mike Schmidt 52 A3

Chris Legg 56 M2

Mark Saunders 59 M3

Alain Vincey 65 M4

Ken Hopkins 66 O1

Mike Noell 72 A4

Chuck Lee 76.5 M5

Henry Amthor 79 A5

Bill Warren 81 O2

John Quay 81 G1

Leonard Wells 81 M6

Phil Grotheer 92 A6

Jim Jacobs wins Laser Masters - 3rd time Champion

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