For many I-20 sailors, the trip to Cedar Lake, Indiana, was a first.  Not so for me; it was 40 years ago this month when I traveled South to buy my first A scow from local icon Dr. Wayne A. Dudley, a 1949 single planked Johnson hull, the aptly yclept  ‘PANDAMONIUM’ [sic].  This started for me what has been a 40 year journey and a string of A scows.  The boat’s transom nameplate still hangs behind the front pew (bar) on the second floor of the Cedar Lake clubhouse. 

I feel that running A scows is a formative learning experience, especially when one is steering; it has been for me, primarily responsible for shaping me into the ornery bastard that I am today.

I don’t know what it means when one drives to a regatta venue in the midst of a rain deluge that prompted flash flood warnings on the radio, capped off by my car electrics failing in Chicago Heights, and the vehicle, I-20 in tow, coasting to a stop in a roadside parking lot.  It wasn’t all bad; the local population came out of the woodwork to help in getting a new battery in the car, and I was on my way in a half hour. 

I started rigging up the boat at 6 AM Saturday morning, and this is where the Keystone Kops part of the experience started to play out; the car and weather problems were just a warm-up.  Cedar Lake YC organizer Pat Kardos had arranged for a local crew, Terry Adams, who had a lot of experience crewing E scows, and has been doing some Chicago-Mackinacs of late.  For the duration of the event, he never missed a board drop.  Rigging the boat, however, was another matter.  In very puffy conditions, between the two of us, we managed to find ourselves going upwind on the first beat with the backstay led between the main halyard and the spar (scratch the backstay for the first race).  When we rounded the first mark, we found that we had rigged the spinnaker halyard between the jib halyard and the forestay.  It was so windy, it didn’t matter much.  The rigging accomplishments were a joint effort; Terry had rigged the jib, and I was responsible for the backstay SNAFU.

There were only about 5 boats seriously in the first race, because the Race Committee (Russ Ackley, et. al.) actually ran the race off on schedule.  I couldn’t remember the flag sequences for a standard 5-minute start sequence…we never use that format, the proper format, at home.  Instead of an I-20 class flag for the Assembly (think they call it ‘warning’ now), they were using Code Flag V, a red ‘X’ on a white field.  I had no clue what that meant; I had missed that in the Sailing Instructions, which I had read, to no avail.  We just stayed right by the start line, approaching at every minute interval, until we saw about 4 other boats amp up and start.  I guess I should have attended the Skippers’ Meeting.  Pretty good so far, but we, the ‘Keystone Kops’, had failed to note the course.  We were in a seesaw battle for 1^st on the second downwind, striking the spinnaker for a Port gate rounding, when John and Erika Sepanski sailed by on Port jibe between us and the mark, spinnaker flying.  Huh?  I looked under the boom, saw the Committee boat, and crash jibed across the line, missing the line buoy by about a foot.  There is no question that if I had had my act together, we would have won that first race.   If it hadn’t been for John and Erika, I probably would have figured it out on the (nonexistent) 3^rd upwind, and had to go back and unwind ourselves.

The afternoon got worse.  Joe  and LaCinda Terry won easily, at least from our vantage point, which had been right alongside them until I rolled the boat on the first downwind.  A large number of the fleet, due to capsizes and other carnage in the first race, didn’t even start that second race.  I knew this, and was desperate to get our boat up and finish, which at the rate the carnage was going, was looking to be as decent as 4^th.  After 3 abortive attempts, we got the boat up, sailed it dry, and finished DFL, a loooong ways behind the 7^th place boat.  The 6^th placer, Andy Gratton, added a lagniappe to his race history by capsizing on the final beat.  Andy is no slouch…he regularly tests his boat on Winnebago in shrieking conditions.  It was hugely entertaining, as long as one wasn’t actually out there sailing in it.  I say ‘sailing’, because a lot of it really couldn’t be described as ‘racing’, at least not on our boat.

My primary goal, at the end, was to keep Joe Terry from lapping us.  I knew we’d never hear the end of it if that happened.  It was close.  Keystone Kops, indeed.

At the dock later, Joe Terry opined that, if I could just keep my boat right side up, I would win an event.  No argument there.

The Cedar Lake YC folks, all volunteer, put on a spectacular feed with charcoal broiled pork steaks very soon after the wind put an end to racing for Saturday.  They have owned the venue since 1959 (club formed in the mid-30s), and it is the most ‘intimate’ of all the ILYA venues, in my estimation.  It’s a great bunch.  Volunteer members actually rebuilt the clubhouse during the period 1983-85.  Wayne Dudley’s son, Tad, was ubiquitous, doing yeoman service behind the bar all weekend long.

As an aside, these Cedar Lake YC people really believe in the perfectability of man…they actually ran bar tabs for every boat all weekend long!  Hope springs eternal.

Here’s a link to a page on the CLYC website that gives the early history of the club, and the significance of the Dudley clan and many others, in it’s formation:

http://www.announcerjoe.com/CLYCHistory.html

W.P. Dudley was Tad Dudley’s grandfather.

Sunday broke with conditions nowhere near as fierce as Saturday, although it was just as puffy, and just as shifty.  I told crew Terry Adams that we were not out of it, standing with 10 points to regatta leaders Joe and LaCinda Terry, with 5 points (I was wrong…the Terrys had only 4 points, Sepanskis 5).  Our assignment was, put 2 bullets on the board, and let the rest of the chips fall where they may.  John Spargo and Gratton were also in the hunt.

We took the transoms of the entire fleet as we sailed with determination to the right off the start line.  We looked like goats for the first two minutes, then the wind oscillated hard right, just as it had done 10 minutes before the start, and we rounded the weather mark with a comfortable lead.  My Keystone Kop inclinations reared up again; crew Terry warned me about the offset, which I would have run over without his hail.  As it was, I hit it, and by the time the penalty circle was done, we were about 5^th.  We spent the rest of the next 3 legs playing catch up, and nipped John Spargo at the downwind finish for the win.  Gratton was 3^rd, Terrys 4th, and Sepanski, in his own words, was ‘deep’.  By my calculations we were 2 points out (wrong…we were 3 points out-Keystone Kops math).

The start routine for the 4^th and final race was the same.  We crossed behind every Starboard tack boat on the starting line save one, and Stefan Schmidt wasn’t too happy about that, and he made some noise about it.  The pictures are pretty incriminating.  I think Stefan’s motivations lay in the fact that we had lent him our backup spinnaker for the weekend, after he had decimated his in the first race on Saturday, and he observed that sailing in front of him had done us no benefit, taking everyone’s transoms after.  The right was spectacularly good, again, on the first beat, and we rounded with Sepanskis immediately behind.  This time, I didn’t hit the offset.  The two boats sailed, alone, about 100 meters ahead of the rest of the fleet until the last beat, when Terrys closed to within about 6 lengths of us.  We quit covering (forced off by Sepanskis, actually), and stretched again to win comfortably.  Sepanskis held on to take second in a squeaker, blocking Spargo and Terry, in that order.  For us, it had to be in that order.  At the end, Terrys, Spargo and we wound up in a three way tie with 12 points.  The most consistent sailor of the group, unquestionably Spargo with 5-2-2-3, came third overall as he had no 1sts.  Terrys, with 3-1-4-4, were also incredibly consistent, but came second to our pair of first place finishes on the final day.

That’s our story, and we’re sticking with it, as bizarre as it is.

We will be at the Lighthouse Regatta, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, weekend of June 6 and 7, for our 6^th consecutive I-20 regatta.