Charleston Race Week

We'd be remiss if we didn't add at least something in our blog about sailing. Eric recently travelled to the city of his alma mater Charleston, SC for "Charleston Race Week". Race week in Charleston is an annual event that usually takes place towards the middle - end of April....a great time to to visit one of the most beautiful cities on the East Coast.

Eric has sailed on a J105 (sloop rigged 33.5' boat) named "Savasana" on a regular basis for the past four years. He put his name on an "available crew" list for Key West Race Week back in Jan. '03, met the owner Brian Keane and has been sailing every event with Brian and the team since.

The racing in Charleston was sure to be very competitive. There was a total of 14 boats in the fleet, including the top four boats from Key West Race Week '07 as well as a new boat on the scene with a group of excellent sailors that Eric went to school with at Charleston. The Savasana crew consisted of the owner and driver, Brain Keane; regular team member and tactician for the event, Harcourt Schutz; Harcourt's long time friend and sailing buddy, Peter Ginz; and two recent alums of the College of Charleston's National Championship winning Woman's Sailing Team, Susan Lintern and Kelley Bowers.

The racing over the first day (Friday) was very tight and Savasana came in tied for 3rd overall. Not bad for going from 1st to 7th on the last leg of the first race! Thankfully, this regatta allowed for a "drop race" (drop your worst score) after six races. The team was hoping to get rid of that 7th by the end of the regatta. The race committee got everyone into shore very late on Friday after 3 races...which was a telltale sign that they were listening to the nasty forecasts for Sunday and quite possibly trying to get as much racing in as they could on Friday and Saturday.

Saturday was a great day...the team finished with a 1, 4, 3, which means the race committee got six races in! So, the team dropped the 7th and Savasana sat in first place by 1 point with (7), 5, 1, 1, 4, 3 as their scores.

Sunday...the team woke up and celebrated their victory as racing was cancelled for the day. The Sunday storm they spoke of came in and it brought some serious breeze. While Eric and the team love to go sailing...going out in a sustained 40.7kts (about 46mph) of breeze just isn't that much fun.

Eric had to miss the awards ceremony in order to try to catch any flight home that he could. However, Brian was there and was happy to receive not only the first place trophy for their fleet, but the team also received the a perpetual trophy called the "Charleston Race Week Cup" for the best overall One Design performance.

Eric is taking a little hiatus from sailing on the Savasana team this summer to spend time with Marin and the baby...he doesn't want to be anywhere too far away when baby Knight decides to arrive! However, he will still be very much involved with coordinating the team and helping Brian out when he can. He is every excited to go out on a good note with a win at Charleston Race Week (2 years in a row!).