46th Annual Liberty Bell Regatta
By David Brawner
It was a beautiful Spring day and the park was buzzing with activity. We had a talented group of 19 EC-12 sailors take part in this one-day regatta.
The marks were set in the morning and never moved. Normally this would lead you to believe that the wind held steady all-day long. Nothing could be further from the truth. The wind never settled in place for even an entire race. Rather than wasting time chasing the wind, we simply dealt with it. These were the conditions that gave Mt. Laurel its reputation.
Every boat length had to earned by finding a puff or figuring out the wind direction. Dave Ramos was unbeatable with six bullets and a third on his score line. Jamey Betz took second just three points off the lead while Scott Graf edged out Jr. Ramos in a tie breaker for third.
Others with bullets included Ivor Walton, Alex Ramos, Scott Graf and Jamey Betz with 2. There may be a small asterisk next to Scott’s win as the three boats ahead of him sailed to the incorrect finish line. Scott was nice enough to alert them…after he finished properly.
The regatta was run using CESS Pool for the first nine races and then the last two were full fleet after a couple breakdowns. The skippers handled the finish line scoring because we were a half man down on the RC side of things. Everyone seemed up to the task.
As always, we all owe a big thank you to Nick and Beth for taking care of the lunches, trophies and scoring. Lisa supplied us with plenty of cookies, brownies and coffee cake. And, if a picture is worth a thousand words, Judy Bonanno will be supplying us with a few million words.
To the sailors, I say thank you for making the RD job so easy and fun.
- Dave Ramos
- Jamey Betz
- Scott Graf
- Alex Ramos
- Don Barker
- Ivor Walton
- Domenick Bonnano
- Bob Shluger
- Skip Hall
- Victor Oberg
- Harry Mote
- Martin Besant
- Mark Fleckenstein
- Cape May Ray
- Tom Alessi
- Dave Branning
- Mr. Joseph Cole
- Al Schober
- Jim Flach
