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IOR 2022 Breakdown from the Skipper


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This past weekend, The University of Toledo Sailing Team traveled to Larchmont, NY to compete in the annual Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta(IOR). An Event that Toledo has participated in for many years despite a fluctuating team size. After last years race was cancelled and coming off a strong year last year. UTSC came in with open minds and ready to work. Below you will find a breakdown of the weekend from our Fleet Captain and Skipper Iain McSweeney.


This club has competed in many IOR's prior, however this would be my first time at IOR, and only my 3rd time skippering for the team. After a rough showing at GLIOR in Chicago two weeks prior, I was nervous but eager to show that this team is much more capable than what we showed. With weather being iffy for the week leading up to IOR, we failed to hold a practice. This was important because we decided that we had two new members that were ready to take on the challenge of competitive offshore sailing.


John, who was our squirrel and furler, participated in his first regatta only a month prior, but in that month he showed more commitment and desire to learn than we could have ever asked for. Alex Schlotterer, who was 1/2 our jib/spinnaker trimming crew, was in the same boat as John, and carried a positive attitude even when the tensions on the boat were high. So we drove to IOR on Thursday night with a crew that was ready to redeem themselves and show what Toledo is capable of.


We arrived Friday morning and practiced on the J/105 Breakthrough for around 4 hours. Our owner, Greg Ryan, and his son provided more helpful information than we ever could have expected, so despite only having 4 hours of practice under our belt, we felt that we were ready to race. Everyone was exhausted after practice, so we went straight to our hotel, held a debrief, then went to bed. The main point of our debrief however was to come into this regatta with zero expectations for how we would do.


Saturday morning came and delivered excellent racing conditions, with the breeze coming directly from the club at a shifty 10-12 knots. Our main trimmer/tactician, Alex Schock, had sailed on the east coast over the summer with Oakcliff and provided excellent information on race 1, which allowed us to weave our way through the fleet after a subpar and finish in 3rd. The butterflies were gone as we went into race 2, where we started with clean air and were able to catch several boats on the downwinds by constantly working with my spinnaker trimmer, Carly Fraker, and managed to come away with a 2nd.


Race 3 provided the biggest challenge of the day with a poor start and being forced into poor lanes on the upwind. We rounded the final gate to learn the course would be shortened and we would finish at the windward mark. We put ourselves into the breeze on the left side and caught a lift that took us to the port layline of the finishing pin, sitting around 6th place. We were forced to duck starboard boats that were mere boat lengths away from the line, but as we looked we saw that they were not making the finish. We tacked just to leeward and in front of another 105, pinched up to the finish, and moved up to 3rd at the finish. Race 4 was the final race of the day and proved to be the least stressful. We had a good start, clean upwind, and a fast downwind that ended with a shortened course at the leeward gate. We had a short debrief but all agreed to be ready to sail Sunday and went back to the hotel to get some much deserved sleep.


We started off a cold and gusty Sunday with a 4th in race 5, which easily could have been a 7th but our bowman, Nathan St. Clair, was able to douse the spinnaker in an instantaneously when Indiana gybed onto starboard and forced us to as well, which allowed us to round inside of Indiana and sail the 2nd upwind with clean air. Race 6 was a rough one, having rounded 3rd at the windward mark, we were taken up past the layline for the leeward gate which forced us to sail extra distance and drop all the way to 9th. But thanks to a great set and spectacular spinnaker work, we worked our way up to 7th by the finish.


Before the final race, we were half of a point behind 2nd. We knew we had to beat Webb, but none of that would matter unless we were able to get ourselves a lane. We easily won the start and decided to go out left away from shore. We had lost sight of Webb but we were sitting in a great position and focused on our speed. We rounded the mark ahead of them, and held our position the entire downwind. We took the right gate and went out left again since it had worked out on the first upwind. As we tacked around the mark, we finally saw Webb roughly 15 boat lengths behind us, which inspired us to have the best hoist we had all weekend, and decided to build speed and wait to see what Webb does.

They gybed around the mark, and we followed, not wanting them to get any pressure that we ourselves couldn't. They caught a puff that came from behind and were rapidly closing the gap, but we eventually caught the same puff and were able to hold them off all the way to the finish. We only beat them overall by half of a point, and only placed 2nd, but the belief that we had in ourselves was restored. We had proven to ourselves that we were the same type of team that we were in May at LEIOR.


We sailed in, collected our gear, and ate pizza while we reflected on a great weekend. We placed 2nd in a strong J/105 fleet behind the Coast Guard Academy. The crew put in cold and rough 2 days of work this weekend, but it paid off and we feel as ready as we could be for Kennedy Cup in a few weeks.



 
 
 

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