El Toros Tour Huntington Lake
By Tom Burden: Regatta Chair
All Photos: Susan Burden
All Photos: Susan Burden
Just after the start, Saturday racing. Leah Ford (11815) is hiking, while the heavier folks are inside. Typical Huntington pressure all three days.
A Different Kind of Championship
Sallie DeWitt was remembering one of her late husband Jim DeWitt’s mottos; "Jim always said you can never win by just following the others." With that spirit in mind, the El Toro Class sailed a different kind of North American Championships at Huntington Lake.
The regatta included real frame-ready DeWitt art for the awards, the same classic Huntington Lake image on the clothing, a selection of unique courses, parties, drama, crystal-pure water and the famous Huntington breeze.
Friday, July 28th, the Skipper’s Meeting happened in front of Fresno Yacht Club’s Regatta Tent at the usual High Sierra Regatta time of 0930. The Huntington zephyr of about eight to 15 knots crept east and filled in precisely at 1000. Racing commenced at 1100 hours on a shortened version of the FYC Start Line, The Race Committee was sitting in lawn chairs on the beach.
Sallie DeWitt prepares to drop the class flag at Fresno Yacht Club's Race Committee Station.
Fresno Yacht Club provided the infrastructure. Sallie DeWitt took down scores and raised flags with her loyal Bichon frise "Little Bit" performing duties as PRO, or Pup Race Officer. Pam DeWitt provided her dad's art for awards and shirts, and competed in the Senior Fleet. Susan Burden shot her usual great photos, giving each sailor their Ansel Adams moment rounding rocky islets. Dan Irwin lead a Fresno Yacht Club team, and Linda of Lakeshore Lodge took care of the Saturday event dinner.
The race courses came with names; Huntington themed (B24 Liberator, Mono, Tradition, Grand Tour), and Jim DeWitt themed (Spreaders, Mallory Cup, Trapeze, Lake Merritt, DeWitt Dinghy, Flower Pot, 216). The seventh race of the eight-race, one throwout series included three islands to Port as turning marks. It was named Fiasco.
Course sheet for Jim DeWitt Memorial 2023 El Toro North Americans
Next Generation At The Front
A youth movement went down July 27th-30th in the 17-boat Senior Fleet, with six under-40-year-olds. The kids ruled, the Hawaiians showed up, and the fleet included five women. Haydon Stapleton (Richmond Yacht Club) and Leah Ford (Kaneohe Yacht Club) were sailing at a different level from the others, but Stapleton's consistency and overall excellence overcame Ford's bursts of blinding pure speed.
Tom Tillotson, from West Sacramento's Lake Washington Sailing Club, finished third and won the final race. Patrick Tara from Santa Cruz edged Richmond's Gordie Nash for fourth. Jim DeWitt’s great-granddaughter, Mackenzie Millan (Richmond Yacht Club) was our Junior Champion, braving a crash jibe/turtle/DNF capsize at Mark Eight in Race One to achieve her goal of completing the Fiasco Islands Race.
Race One began with a twitchy ten-knot breeze, with a Northwest slant. The course was “Spreaders.”
It looked like it might be an easy series for Haydon Stapleton. The two Thursday afternoon practice races looked like total domination, a coronation on Huntington Lake. Sailing in Mike Quinn’s borrowed El Toro, Haydon was smooth, higher and faster upwind, and continuing to extend downwind. And now that it counted, Haydon was playing the shifts craftily on the beat to Mark Two, doing just what he’d done to the Day Sailer fleet with straight bullets two weeks earlier. His lead continued to grow during the rest of the double hot dog with a final beat from Mark Eight, which he won with ease.
Haydon (Neil) Stapleton is chill...
That’s when Leah Ford showed up.
She had finished second but a long way behind Haydon, and she looked lost in the Toro she borrowed from her boyfriend’s dad. Her vang was eased too much, sail twisted and billowing forward while sailing downwind; boathandling tentative; her start not a thing of beauty.
That all changed in Race Two, a course named “Flower Pot”. The 85-pound Ford, sailing with a powered-up Jotz F150 sail, was lithe, athletic and hiked like hell. She would regularly uncork bursts of ridiculous acceleration both on and off the wind. Tom Tillotson finished second, in a preview of solid sailing to come. This time it was the red boat way back in third place.
Hot Dogs on the Lake, Sandwiches for Dinner
Saturday’s wind showed up a little early and blew straight down the lake; just ideal racing conditions. Huntington Lake continued on its best behavior, with no hint of thunderstorms, easterly Mono wind or extreme heat. The Race Committee threatened long and weird courses, but sane and less-sadistic minds prevailed. There was to be no Grand Tour or Lake Merritt with its downwind start. Instead, the contenders at the top battled it out on three conservative Mallory Cup courses, double hot dogs with downwind finishes.
Leah and Haydon traded firsts and seconds, with the regatta ultimately pivoting on the finish of Race Six. The charging Ford was blanketing Stapleton as these two ran downwind, heeled to weather, approaching the line. Her closing speed was phenomenal as she drew alongside, and it looked like a dead heat with mere inches to go. In the final half-second, Haydon’s bow poked about six inches in front for the whistle. This dramatic finish effectively sealed the regatta; a game of inches sometimes, but game over nonetheless.
After the racing we adjourned to the Lakeshore Resort for drinks and dinner, and Gordie Nash leading us in the Annual Meeting. With all of the devastation from the Creek Fire of 2020, we were grateful that the resort was still here, as the Huntington Lake community had endured
Saturday’s wind showed up a little early and blew straight down the lake; just ideal racing conditions. Huntington Lake continued on its best behavior, with no hint of thunderstorms, easterly Mono wind or extreme heat. The Race Committee threatened long and weird courses, but sane and less-sadistic minds prevailed. There was to be no Grand Tour or Lake Merritt with its downwind start. Instead, the contenders at the top battled it out on three conservative Mallory Cup courses, double hot dogs with downwind finishes.
Leah and Haydon traded firsts and seconds, with the regatta ultimately pivoting on the finish of Race Six. The charging Ford was blanketing Stapleton as these two ran downwind, heeled to weather, approaching the line. Her closing speed was phenomenal as she drew alongside, and it looked like a dead heat with mere inches to go. In the final half-second, Haydon’s bow poked about six inches in front for the whistle. This dramatic finish effectively sealed the regatta; a game of inches sometimes, but game over nonetheless.
After the racing we adjourned to the Lakeshore Resort for drinks and dinner, and Gordie Nash leading us in the Annual Meeting. With all of the devastation from the Creek Fire of 2020, we were grateful that the resort was still here, as the Huntington Lake community had endured
much pain. The resort’s Grand Ballroom, where we held our banquet back in 1998, was damaged by last winter’s record snowpack. The beams holding up the roof were cracked by 28’ of snow that piled up, in spite of constant labor to shovel it clear. But new ownership for the resort has made lots of progress, even though Linda and her staff served us food from a portable trailer, not a real kitchen.
Still, the water in Huntington was even more crystal clear than usual this year, and very cold. A torrent of water roaring out of the Ward Tunnel had sailors joking about a current flowing on the lake. The electrical generators of the hundred-year-old Big Creek Project were no doubt humming, making current of another kind.
The scarring effects of the 2020 Creek Fire had begun to soften, with restoration and logging going on at breakneck pace. Even so, the campgrounds at Upper Billy Creek, Catavee and Kinnikinnik were closed for the year, with the latter two in doubt of ever opening again. Worse, many of the locals had lost their homes and lost their leases, if they didn’t have enough insurance coverage.
Still, the water in Huntington was even more crystal clear than usual this year, and very cold. A torrent of water roaring out of the Ward Tunnel had sailors joking about a current flowing on the lake. The electrical generators of the hundred-year-old Big Creek Project were no doubt humming, making current of another kind.
The scarring effects of the 2020 Creek Fire had begun to soften, with restoration and logging going on at breakneck pace. Even so, the campgrounds at Upper Billy Creek, Catavee and Kinnikinnik were closed for the year, with the latter two in doubt of ever opening again. Worse, many of the locals had lost their homes and lost their leases, if they didn’t have enough insurance coverage.
Start of Race Seven. Gordie Nash sails calmly past while Haydon Stapleton performs a "bunny hop" around the Start mark. JV Gilmour's dog, Noche, watches the action from behind.
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Tough times, with bark beetle infestations, drought, terrible fire and then record snow. But through all the tragedies and sadness, the sailing at 7,000 feet is still exactly the same, still just as magical, as it was seventy years ago.
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Pam DeWitt makes a big splash rounding Island #1, Race Seven.
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A Tour of Three Islands
Sunday morning, the breeze was a little late, and a little light, but it built to the low end of typical by the 1100 start. The racers rounded a small rocky islet near Mark Two, sailed across toward Gold Arrow Camp, rounding a small archipelago there, transited between the large island and the south shore, reaching down to Mark Eight, then to the finish.
Paul Zander passes Island #2 in Race Seven, The Fiasco Islands Race. The lead boats approach the third island at right.
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Most of the fleet, except for Vickie Gilmour, escaped the large wind hole behind the island. Haydon got into the pressure quickest of all, escaping to a no-doubt lead by the bottom mark. Tom Tillotson jumped to the head of the pack chasing third place overall, and cemented his excellent regatta by winning the last race. The course was “216” with marks as the name indicates. In this final race, the fleet experienced the thrill of short-tacking up the shore in front of the Boy Scout Camp, an iconic and pressure-packed part of what makes Huntington Lake special. |
Award Winners 1st-5th Back Row (L-R) Haydon (Neil) Stapleton, Leah Ford, Tom Tillotson, Patrick Tara, Gordie Nash. Front: Mackenzie Millan, Junior 1st
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