Long Beach, Calif.— Dave Michaelis’ road to winning the 2011 Schock 35 Nationals Sunday, hosted by Long Beach Yacht Club, was an uphill trek that paid off with only a one point separation between first and second place.
Michaelis’ boat Mako is named after the famous mako shark. The cartoon drawing on the side of the boat should be a warning to others that these guys are determined and aggressive… and it showed.
“The mindset today was to get out there and not make mistakes,” Michaelis said, “and with the teamwork of the crew it paid off.”
Part of the rocky road to the top was the variable wind of 2 to 20 knots that kept everyone including race committee guessing what it was going to do next.
“At the end of the day Friday we were 10 points behind,” said Michaelis. “In Saturday’s racing we were consistent, making up six points with a first [place] and two second-place finishes.
“Going into today Outlier had a four point advantage over us and we were able to get ahead of them and stay ahead.”
Leading at the end of the first two days, but finishing the regatta in second place was Richard Fish’s Outlier.
“In our first race today MAKO boxed us in next to the Race Committee boat,” Fish said, “and we had to back out of the start. That put us at the tail end at the start and we played catch-up the rest of the race but couldn’t get to the front.
“The second race we got a pretty good start but we just didn’t have the boat speed to catch MAKO. We were watching the race from behind.”
Taking third in the regatta was Bruce Bennett and Bob Marcus’ Code Blue. Even after suffering a DSQ after a protest in the first race Friday they kept their focus never finishing out of the top four throughout the regatta.
“We would have done better but we had several issues this weekend,” Bennett said, “One was wrapping one of our sheets in the sixth race which cost us a couple of positions.”
Michaelis added final comments on the regatta complimenting LBYC on a well run regatta and said, “This is a great fleet and anyone who’s considering coming into a One-Design fleet should consider the Schock 35s. They’re a lot of fun to race!”
Final Results
1. Dave Michaelis, MAKO, Alamitos Bay YC, 6-2-6-1-2-2-1-1, 21pts
2. Richard Fish, Outlier, Seal Beach YC, 1-1-2-4-1-6-4-3, 22
3. Bruce Bennett/Bob Marcus, Code Blue, Alamitos Bay YC & Seal Beach YC, 11(DSQ)-3-1-2-5-9-3-2, 36
Complete results are available at www.lbyc.org.
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