Beulah C Scows Go 1&2 at Labelle Tune-Up

As told by Joe Skotarzak... As of Friday night, May 15th, two Beulah C-scows planned to make the trip north to Oconomowoc for the LaBelle tuneup.  When Saturday dawned sunny and chilly and windy enough to blow the tops off the waves and for small dog warnings to be issued, alas, there was only the B-217 in the parking lot in O-town.  Still nobody is quite sure where Team Hung Over was on that Saturday morning, but they weren't at the regatta.  Fortunatly for them they didn't miss anything, as it looked to be blowing pretty steadily in the high 20's all day long.  The skipper's meeting informed us that more than likely we wouldn't be sailing Saturday because it was too windy and too cold and too early in the season so there would be no chase boats in case of emergency.  An on-shore postponement until at least noon was announced and everyone relaxed.  Noon came and went and lunch was served and at 2p the decision was made to call it a day.  Many participants retired to the planned party at Andrea Keck Jarecki's brother's house for beer and snacks and a little bit of volleyball.  Meanwhile, Andrea's cousin Karla joined Kurt Mihelich and two (yes, two, there were four of them total on board, two boys and two girls) others for a C-scow ride around the west end of LaBelle.  Luckily nothing broke and nobody got hurt, and they did get some very fast and wild rides in!  Saturday evening was spent at bartending practice at the LBYC in lieu of the cocktail party further away from home in Okauchee.

Sunday dawned much nicer, a little bit warmer and a whole lot less breeze.  By the time we arrived in the parking lot, what to our wondering eyes should appear?  You guessed it, the B-18!  So now there were two B-boats, and there was much rejoicing. The goad was to get two races in but this time the wind didn't cooperate on the bottom end, as it was light and fluky and banging back and forth, much to the chagrin of the judges and competitors.  Finally they moved the course and the breeze settled enough to get a race going.  The B-18 led most of the C-scows off toward the left side of the course while Anne "I've got a way better idea than all those dumb boys" Porter Muller steered the 217 off on a lonely port toward the Monastery and the right side.  Sure enough, she did have a better idea than all those dumb boys, it came big right, she thumbed her nose at the boys with one hand while steering with the other and we led into the top mark.  The breeze hadn't settled down that much and for a couple laps there was much jostling of position and soon enough we found ourselves in last in the 12 boat fleet as the not-so-dumb boys took some revenge.  We got the later laugh as the first leg repeated and we got some good leverage again and the fleet flipped over and we went from last to first with the B-18 behind us heading down the last run.  We held the brothers Brickler behind us to the mark and rounded and started toward the left side, nervously thinking that the only mark worth leading in this kind of crapshoot is the last one.  As we worked the auto-tacks a little bit back toward the middle we couldn't quite make out what Brian was yelling to us, but it sounded an awful lot like "HEY SILLY GIRL, YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT GOING FURTHER LEFT!" but only he, and possibly Kevin, could really say for sure.  Either way, it turns out he was right in getting way left as they swooped around us to take the bullet and the coveted LaBelle tuneup title for 2009!  We followed them across, so the two-boat Beulah contingent took home the top two spots.

Hopefully at the next regatta we'll have WAY MORE B-boats helping to carry the flag! Jeff Lippert told me he thought that the 88 was going to make it onto the trailer this year because finally it has two good tires on it.  Not sure about that, but, oddly enough Jay Hiller mentioned that he was pretty sure that the 99 was going to Nationals on Pewaukee since it is so close by and they have that nice big nap-ready lawn out front.  When you see either of those guys around, please be sure to congratulate them on carrying the Beulah burgee out onto the C-scow regatta circuit this year!