2010 Thistle National Championship - LaSalle, Michigan
Dieball Sailing team in full support of the Thistle Class Association. Report filed by National's Runner Up, Greg Griffin
2010 Thistle Nationals - Greg Griffin, 3976
The 2010 Thistle Nationals was truly an event not to be missed. The Regatta Co-Chairs of Laurie and Skip Dieball and their wonderful team of volunteers from North Cape Yacht Club again set the bar even higher for regatta excellence. There was truly a “festival” atmosphere with live entertainment most nights, about 70 tents in the camping area and a huge bonfire on Thursday night.
The regatta started with the Women's & Junior's Championship. The weather played
havoc with their schedule, but they were able to get in some great racing on Sunday, the day after the originally scheduled championship. Congratulations to Nicole Shedden and her team for winning the Womens division. Congrats too goes out to Dieball Sailing customer Andy Gunkler and his team for repeating as Jr. Champions!
On the water, PRO Dave Shaffer did an excellent job of delivering fair courses in the very challenging conditions. Since the Nationals is held over the course of five days, we usually get a little bit of every weather condition and this year was no exception.
The qualifying series was completed on Monday and Tuesday with Team Ingham, husband and wife Mike and Delia with their son Sam, staking a claim to the top spot and the MacLuff Goblett with three firsts. In addition to Mike's team sweeping the qualifiers, another highlight was Bob McCormack's team winning a race! Bob is a long time Thistle sailor and crossed the line with his son's two teams waiting to cheer his accomplishment as they were in the 1st division.
The light SE thermals of the first two days were replaced with great breeze at 12-18 knots out of the S to SW direction for Wednesday. Doug Kaukeinan with teammates Deirdre Santos and Brad Swett mastered the strong shifty breeze to claim bullets in both races of the Championship Division. Meanwhile, the teams of Doc Gates and Dan Reasoner each posted a pair of top 5 finishes to sit at 6 and 7 points respectively in the President’s Fleet.
The great winds would not last long as Thursday we were greeted with a shifty wind from the NE that was extremely volatile in velocity. Tim Fitzgerald’s team led the way through the triangle in the Championship Division. After several lead changes, we were fortunate enough to grab and maintain the lead on the last leg to the finish. Past President Ron Smith and his team put together another solid race to jump to the top of the President’s Fleet.
With no wind on Friday, the scores would stand and Team Ingham would claim the title – Mike’s sixth to date. In addition, they would collect the Haupt Trophy for the top finishing husband and wife as well as the Valla Trophy for top family team. Speaking of special awards and families, the Minton Trophy for service to the Thistle Class was presented to the event Co-Chairs, Laurie and Skip Dieball.
