You wait for the perfect wind speed. Sometimes it takes longer than expected. You’ve been prepping all day: your sails are hooked properly and your Thistle is clean. As you finally sail out to the middle of the lake you look back at your family as they yell out, “Good luck.” Out on the water, you begin to jostle for the best positioning near the starting line. With 50 other boats in your way it’s harder than it may seem. You scope out your competition – to the left is a nationally ranked sailor, and to the right you see a team of men who have been sailing together for 30 years. You start to question if your team is prepared, or even if you are. Will you pull up your sail fast enough? Is the wind going to be in your favor? Are you going to have a clear shot around the buoys? With all these thoughts running through your head you hear the 1-minute-to-start horn blow. You still fight for your positioning and take one last moment to smile at your teammates and assure them that you are ready. Taking a quick look at your watch, you mouth “5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” and hear a long siren; the race has begun.
Tense moments like this are common just before the start of a regatta. This year’s Memorial Day Regatta, hosted by the Eugene Yacht Club, is no exception. Every boat in each of the five fleets competing today has five minutes to maneuver into the optimal spot before the whistle is blown and the action kicks off. The winds on Fern Ridge Reservoir shift unpredictably, posing a steep challenge even for veteran skippers like Dean Mitchell, Race Committee Chairman of the EYC and longtime sailor.
“It’s not like watching paint dry,” says Mitchell. “We call it ‘negotiating for position,’ and it gets a bit chaotic. There’s a whole lot of stuff going on, but that’s what makes it interesting.”
The regatta has occurred annually since the Second World War, and draws participants from around the country. Novices and professionals alike take part in the race for myriad reasons: experience, recognition, distinction, or for younger sailors like Bryce Compton, the simple thrill of competition.
“It’s a lot of fun, because we don’t always have one boat that’s the ‘they’re going to win, it’s not even a race anymore’ boat,” says Compton with a smile. “Some weeks you’re really spot on and other weeks you get wind shifts that you’re not used to. So it can change a lot and you can be first one week, and last the next.”
This is Compton’s third time racing in the Memorial Day Regatta. He is part of a three-man team racing in the Thistle class, among the smallest of the sailboats on the lake today. The largest are the triremes, which are upwards of 30 feet long. The majority of the boats competing are Thistles because, as well as being a memorial race, it is the Pacific Coast Championship for the Thistle class. “Irie,” Jamaican for “No worries,” is a wooden Thistle crewed by Jeanette Nelson, whose husband, Paul, restored the boat years ago. Together they make the only husband-wife team competing in the regatta.
For the people at the yacht club, they created a culture out of sailing.Most of the sailors have been racing their whole lives, and with their team members for decades.
“A lot of these people we have been sailing with for 30 years,” says Paul Nelson. It becomes more than just a race, but also a community. It’s a place where you can take your family; in fact it’s not unusual to see a family competing out on the lake. One
of the most beneficial parts of racing is all of the relationships you build in the sailing community,
“It’s a community and every new person we add is like gaining a new friend,” says Jack Thomas, one of the younger competitors. As far as Chairman Mitchell is concerned, he would like to add to the legacy of the many great sailors of the Eugene Yacht Club. By putting together programs for high school teams and other newcomers, he hopes to inspire the next generation of sailors and build for the future.
“The hopes are that those people get the love of sailing and continue on,” he says, “and that’s part of the building program.”
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