EC12 Regatta emblem

EC12 regatta headlineThe day dawned with a clear blue sky and a cold mist hovering on Hagerstown City Park Lake. Cumberland Valley MYC members were excited to host a brand new EC12 regatta at this 100 yr old classic City Park Lake. It reminds me of my childhood family vacation memories getting glimpses of model sailboats at Central Park and Golden Gate Park.

We had 15 skippers show up to compete in this event, traveling from PA, NJ, WV, MD, and even VT!! Two are former National Champions and four were local club members. I even convinced my friend Doug Wotring to come play after a 5 yr absence!


Two boats had issues with faulty or missing equipment and both were rescued by Terry Lamb using his demo boat as a parts boat for a sail rig and transmitter-receiver loaners. Awesome!


Racing started at 10AM with a light breeze from the south, which is the best direction for this lake. Single fleet racing all day long and the wind slowly built to 5-10mph and the southerly held. We lengthened the races from 1 ¼ laps to 2 ¼ laps to make it 2 long upwind legs as the wind picked up.

The skippers shared the lake edge sidewalk with lots of fascinated spectators, young and old. The first 4 races were all won by a different skipper and those 4 skippers would end up winning every race and being the 1-4th place at the end of the day. Jamey Betz made it two bullets in a row to complete the morning with a 4 pt lead over Dave Ramos.


After lunch Jamey had a mechanical underdeck issue that gave him a last place finish while Dave R began a run to the finish line with 3 -1st, a 2nd and 3 -3rds. Jamey also had 3-1sts after lunch but could not quite catch him despite the two throwouts, losing by 1 point.

Scott Graf had an excellent regatta with two bullets and ended a solid 3rd place. 4th place trophy was won by a tiebreaker with Dave Branning’s win in the third race gaining him the last trophy over Harry Mote. There was close racing at all levels of the fleet as 10 of the positions were settled by one pt or less.

My two scorekeepers Nicole Asplund and Penny Smith were flawless! EC12 Class Photographer Judy Bonnano and CVMYC website manager and photographer Helen Stevens were capturing the event.

Thanks to my CVMYC members and also to City of Hagerstown for allowing us to host this amazing event!! Let’s do it again next year. Maybe a two day?


-Jarl Wathne, Race Director, Commodore CVMYC.


           Final Results

  1.      Dave Ramos 21
  2.      Jamey Betz 22
  3.      Scott Graf 39
  4.      Dave Branning 46
  5.      Harry Mote 46
  6.      Doug Wotring 59
  7.      Dom Bonnano 60
  8.      Tim Stone 67
  9.      Roger Baldwin74
  10.      Jerry Franko 82
  11.      Mike Cavanaugh91
  12.      Scott Smith 92
  13.      Kelly Davis 110
  14.      Nick Krawczak 132
  15.      Troy Wallace 133

Videos of the Starts