The ASSA Match Racing Championship 2011

October 15th, 2011 saw the second Annual ASSA Match Racing Championships taking place on Edenton Bay.

The orginal intention was to have it on the Chowan River in front of the River House Restaurant, but strong westerlies the day before made getting the boats round the corner impossible. A last minute change of Venue moved us to Edenton Bay, where we were able to set up a course under the lee of the windward shore in the brisk South Westerly winds that we were blessed with all day.

The event was made possible by the generous loan of two J24s owned by Ken Atkisson and Skip Hope and the unselfish donation of time and/or power boats by Steve Mills who provided the Umpire Boat and Carl Hafer crewed by Mike Colton, who acted as the Changeover Boat. Our Race Committee boat was Barbara Jean III, and the Skipper and Mate, Gil and Barbara Burroughs, efficiently started and finished all the races during the day.

The day started with coffee and delicious home made muffins courtesy of Bob and Jean Batson. Coffee really does taste better when it is not in a styrofoam cup.

The day finished with a superb Buffet Supper provided by The River House Restaurant and a prize giving under the darkening sky and beautiful sunset.

The Champions for 2011 were the Osprey Yacht Club from Albemarle Plantation again, this time led by Courtney Young crewed by George Earle and Terry Facey.

Second for the second year in a row were Mike Robinson and his crew of Sandy Cross and Bill Tabb from Colington who without a broach on the final beat which resulted in an involuntary tack, may well have taken the overall championship.

Third and fourth were Edenton Yacht Club represented by Skip Hope, Skip Carney and Chris Perry, and Pasquotank River Yacht Club skippered by Greg Duncan with his trusty crew.

The knockout table was set up with a drawing in the morning to decide the initial combatants for the first four races. Ties were decided by time difference between first and second when the same boat won both races.

The two winners then raced each other for the overall Championship, and the two losers competed to decide Third and Fourth. This was a long day on the water for everyone as a brown bag lunch was brought out to the competitors to keep the racing going as quickly as possible. We are all still learning the ropes with this new (to us) form of competition, but everyone had a great time and the warm windy weather did its best to make the day extremely memorable.

Some of the action pictures from the day are shown below. Click on any of them for a larger version.