Thirteen Days of Regatta

The end of July was fantastic, focused, frazzling and fun. It was two weeks packed of sailing with friends and family, seafood, earwigs, camping in Navy base parking lots, socializing with people I'd never dreamed of meeting and (unintentionally) dissing the hostess of our century.

The first week was Whidbey Island Race Week on Slingshot which is not only a fantastic time but this year my big sister flew out to race with us for the whole week. (Have I ever told you how much I love sailing with the Slingshot guys? Well, I'm telling you again: I love it.)


Miako and I represent USA all over, right down to our pasty white skin!


Plus we all wore matching red jumpsuits- -how could you NOT have a great time dressed like this?

At the end of the week we broke camp and Miako and I headed back to Seattle leaving the return delivery in the hands of Mike and Grady--sorry, guys!

After a tasty sushi dinner with my sister, I was off to Bar Harbor, Maine for the International Class' World Championship Regatta-- a week of proper yachting in the Northeast. A little bit of background as to how I got to participate in this regatta: During my three months in San Francisco I found myself a boat to race on out of the St Francis Yacht Club. Not only were they good enough to humor me showing up on the docks in jeans on a Wednesday night with nothing but a set of gloves and a bottle of wine, but I was invited back week after week. (Below is a Wednesday night race in San Francisco with Paul and Lance.)


During my one weekend in the city, I raced with them 2/3 days in the Woodies Invitational, one of the qualifying races for Worlds. As luck would have it, they were the 2nd of two boats from the San Francisco fleet to qualify for the World Championships and were generous enough to ask me to race with them. (wow!)

The transition from car camping in a Navy parking lot in the Northwest to "casual" New England catered cocktail parties with where people dressed in white khakis, button up shirts and dresses which cost more than anything I own was, well, stark-- I was definitely on the fringe of the crowd. Luckily the excuse "she's from Seattle" seemed to explain me well enough ;) The first couple days were unusually windy for the region but not unlike the conditions we were used to in San Francisco. It was hot, but blowing in the upper 20's and 30's. The first two days many boats were damaged and the race committee was cautious about starting too many races for fear that they might cripple the local fleet of boats. (One of the amazing things about the IOD fleet is that the hosting fleet provides both boats and accommodations for all of the visiting teams.) More about the races here.

Other amazing things I am supposed to be posting photos of (but less eloquent with boasting about) are the people, namely, Martha Stewart.

The opening party was at a Rockefeller's home, another evening I had dinner with the Fords and one evening Martha (by invitation only) cordially invited the fleet for an evening of cocktails at her Skylands estate. (All three, including Paul in the background in the left, can be seen in the photo above.)

As you would imagine, the entire estate was all absolutely lovely, understated and perfectly manicured. (I couldn't help but notice the carefully laid pathway of white pine needles through a cedar forest containing no White pine trees and the carefully placed collection of rocks and mushroom on the self guided walk up to the main house.)

In all sincerity, while I can't help but poke fun at the impeccable execution (I know, I will not be invited back after this) I must admit that she truly is the hostess of the century. In attendance were somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 guests and I have no doubt she spoke with half of them-- even if some of them inadvertently offended the her by replying the soup was "nice" when she asked : /

Lastly a photo on the terrace at Martha's Skylands estate.

IOD World's 2010 San Francisco 2 crew
Mark, Tony, Paul, me, Spencer.