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H-16 Continental Championships South Padre Island, TX By William Wallick South Padre Island. A perfect place for the 1997 Hobie 16 North American Continental |
| Championships. This long barrier island has miles and miles of white sandy beaches that stretch from the southern tip of Texas all the way north to Corpus Christi. With the Gulf of Mexico on the east side and the flat protected waters of the Laguna Madre on the west side, it is a sailing paradise. Warm and sunny, the wind is dependably steady and usually out of the SE at 15-25mph. |  South Padre Island. |
 | But this is not the SPI that the fifty-nine entrants are about to encounter. Something called the Red Tide invaded the island about two weeks earlier. Throwing algae into the air, it causes a persistent, dry hacking cough to anyone who ventures outdoors. |
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Then on Sunday, the day before race day, the weather rolled in and started to make it’s presence
felt. The wind remained out of the SE, but kicked up to 22 knots. Outside the surf line, the
waves were seven feet high at seven second intervals. Launching and beaching became
challenging as the waves rushed in over the three offshore sandbars. The increased wind and
surf activity intensified the effect of the Red Tide. The day was pleasant with an air temperature
of eighty-three degrees, and a water temperature of eighty-two, but the conditions were strong.
A handful of people ventured out, and some paid the price. Three people had broken masts, Jeff
Petron had the surf rip the gudgeons off his transoms, and another boat got a minor nose job
(slightly delaminated bow) coming in through the surf.
Most people worked aimlessly on their boats and waited for the wind to die down. Up in the parking lot a few people were still setting up their boats prior to being towed down to the beach. Inside the Holiday Inn, registration continued as the Race Committee huddled and went over their plans for the week. With the present conditions there was concern for the safety of the bottom third of the fleet. Having no extra chase boats, safety became a major concern. Leaving the Holiday Inn I see someone walking through the parking lot toward his boat, wearing a paper dust mask. The wind is strong, I thought, but it doesn’t seem very dusty to me. I hadn’t made the connection yet. Driving back to the condo I begin to cough a little. Monday morning. Walking to Rovan’s for breakfast I begin coughing in earnest. Welcome to the Red Tide. Time for the skipper’s meeting but it’s raining like crazy. We all jam into the Aztec Room at the Holiday Inn. Immediately my coughing, like others, goes away. Race Director Paul Ulibarri goes over what is planned for the week. Paul then asks Hobie Alter Jr. to give some tips to the racers about launching through the surf. Hobie starts with, “All you guys who know how to go through the surf can leave.” Nobody leaves. Judging by the questions the racers ask of Hobie it appears that there are a fair number of “lakers” here, or a bunch of inexperienced ocean sailors. I’m a laker, and I wonder what I would be thinking if I was launching through that stuff. The meeting breaks up and I get buffeted around by the wind as I walk through the parking lot. A fire truck goes rushing by to deal with some emergency. I’m pretty sure it is wind related. Not ten steps into the parking lot and the coughing begins. What is this stuff? |
“I went out in the Red Tide on Sunday and it was like having jalapeno juice sprayed in your face.
I had to close my eyes as tight as I could, pry em open briefly just to see enough to get back in,
and then squeeze them shut again because they hurt so bad. I had to go take a shower just to
get that stuff out. It was severe.”
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Phil Collins
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| By mid afternoon the wind has shifted from its usual south-easterly direction and is coming out of the north. As the locals know, the north wind means a little colder temperatures and a lot stronger wind. I would describe it as “blowing like hell.” At the afternoon meeting we are told the north wind will blow away the red tide, south to Brownsville. But the big news is that there will be no racing today. There is serious concern about the lack of extra chase boats. |
 openings for the port tacker on the right? |
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Hooray. It is Tuesday morning, the sun is out and the sky is clearing. The wind is out of the north, and it is the windiest day yet. Unfortunately it hasn’t blown away the Red Tide yet. It looks like a perfect sailing day. There is no tent set up on the beach for the skipper’s meeting, which is just as well, as I doubt if it will withstand this northern wind. Instead, we all huddle behind a small windbreak at the Sheraton pool and are surprised at Ulibarri’s announcement that the venue is being changed. The race is being moved to the bay side of the island. The strong wind and aggressive surf would just be too formidable for many of the racers. With no extra chase boats to lend assistance if needed, it is a prudent decision. It will eliminate the surf problem and make any necessary rescues considerably easier. It is 10:43a.m. and we are going to shoot for a 2:30 start time. A mad scramble ensues as masts are dropped, boats are carried up and over the sea wall, and some people (illegally) drive down onto the beach to trailer their boats up to the parking lot. Amazingly, by 11:30 the Hobies are off the beach and only a few remain in the parking lot. I am coughing like a Vick’s commercial so I decide it’s time to put macho aside and join the dust mask crowd. The put-in spot is north of town near the Convention Center. The bay (Laguna Madre) is flat protected water, over two miles wide from the mainland to the island. The bad part is, that most of the two mile distance is knee-deep/waist-deep water! Having sailed there |
| quite a bit, I remembered the problems I had with my rudders kicking up in the shallow water. There are no nice sandy beaches here. Those are on the Gulf side. This will be shallow water and mud flats. Just getting the boats out to where it is deep |
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enough to float them proves to be a major chore.
Some people use their beach wheels, while others just “brute-force” their boats out. You can see
in the photograph how far from shore the boats are, and notice the standing people with water
only up to their calves.
With a mid-afternoon white flag we still get in two races. The normally flat, protected waters of the bay are now showing small whitecaps. |  rudders prior to the first race. |
| There are several capsizes as the wind takes a few sailors by surprise. Wally Myers and Mark Santorelli, who took first in the 1995 Continentals, start the day off strong with a first and a third place finish. Tying them for the lead is the team of Phil and Beverly Collins who net two second place finishes. Hobie Alter Jr. and crew Kathy Ward are off to a slow start with a fifth and an eighth place finish. |
 Madre you know it is blowing. |
| Wednesday starts off cold and cloudy, but as the day progresses the sun comes out and warms everyone. The wind, which had briefly subsided during the night, picks up again as the day goes on. With the |
| wind out of the north and the absence of surf, the effects of the Red Tide are minimized. Collins/Collins move ahead of Myers/Santorelli by posting three firsts and a third. Myers/Santorelli drop to second place with a second, a second, a fifth, and a fourth place finish. Alter Jr./Ward lose some ground as their second, third, and fifth place finishes were marred by a seventeenth place finish in the third race of the day. |
| This race is one of the few that the outside of the course fails to be the favored side. Meanwhile, Keith Christensen and Chris Veneman - aka V-Boy, second place finishers at last year’s Continentals, start to make their presence felt after a lackluster day (capsized during second race) on Tuesday. Today they finish fourth, thirty- sixth, seventh and sixth respectively. |
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“This was the smoothest water I have ever sailed in my entire life. I’ve never seen anything like
it. It’s blowing thirty, and maybe one inch ripple on the water. It was crazy. The boats would get
going so fast, because there was nothing to slow them down, so the apparent wind would keep
moving forward on you. So the tacking angles were crazy. So if the boats going twenty miles-
per-hour, and it takes you a few seconds to tack, that makes a tack hurt you more. The faster
you go, the more the tacks hurt you. Since we were going so fast you really had to limit your
tacks. You could go the wrong way, but tack less, and still make out OK.”
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Keith Christensen
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Thursday dawns with a prediction of 15-25 knots. The wind is still out of the north, but it is
starting to subside a bit. The whitecaps have left the Laguna Madre.
Collins/Collins fifty-fourth place finish (over early) in the first race today drops them into third place overall and allows Myers/Santorelli to take the lead. Myers/Santorelli finished the day with a first, a first, a fourth, |
right at the “A” mark. |
| a seventh, and a thirteenth - and now have a nice lead of 18 points. Alter Jr. and Ward are working the outside of the course very successfully, and they move into second place by finishing ninth, second, first, third, and sixth. Christensen/V-Boy continue to heat up with finishes of fourth, eighth, fifth, first, and second. |
mark far ahead of the pack. |
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“I’m usually faster if it’s under 20-25. I can sail in all conditions, but I’m faster if it’s lighter.” |
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Keith Christensen
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Friday arrives sunny, with a few clouds. But the wind continues to lessen. There will be three
races today and the top position is still up for grabs.
The Alter Jr./Ward team win the championship by notching up three third place finishes for a point total of seventy. Kathy Ward also took first place honors at last year’s |
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Continentals with
skipper Jeff Alter. Myers/Santorelli have a bad first race finishing twentieth,
then steadily
improved with a tenth and a sixth place finish. They finish second with a total of 79 points.
Christensen/V-Boy continue to come on strong, posting a sixth, followed by two bullets to move
into third place with 105 points. Collins/Collins, fifth place finishers in the 1996 Continentals,
struggled a bit on this final day, posting a nineteenth, seventeenth, and an eighth, for a total
point count of 124, securing them a fourth place finish.
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| Alter Jr./Ward | 70 | 17(T.O.)= | 53 (Final) |
| Myers/Santorelli | 79 | 20(T.O.)= | 59 (Final) |
| Christensen/V-Boy | 105 | 36(T.O.)= | 69 (Final) |
| Collins/Collins | 124 | 54(T.O.)= | 70 (Final) |
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The top four team’s were very competitive amongst themselves. Each teams throw-out race affected their final point total but it did not change the final standings. Everyone changed places from yesterday, and anyone could have emerged the victor. The Alter Jr./Ward team won because of their consistent performance during all four days. They had one bad race, on Wednesday, which was their throw out. Myers/Santorelli’s sub-par performance on Friday cost them the title and dropped them into second place. The Collins/Collins team also had a bad day on Friday which may have cost them first place. |
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And Christensen/V-Boy could not overcome
Tuesdays slow start despite a strong finish. Second, third and fourth were all within a second
throw-out (or a bad finish here and there) of winning the championship. It made for a very
interesting race.
The next closest, in fifth place, was Tom Materna and Lin Bates with 119, then the scores jumped substantially higher, to 153 for sixth place, and on up for the remainder of the fleet. The race by race results for all teams are available at http://www.nahca.org. |
 championship form. |
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William Wallick wallick@concentric.net |
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I could never have gotten the story and pictures without help from a lot of people.
Thanks to Shirley Palmer for checking my accuracy and answering numerous questions. Betty
for getting me out on the boats. Ricky Eddington for supplying a jet ski for Friday’s race. Ron
for keeping ‘em running and putting up with me. |
 Paul Ulibarri and the good folks on “the platform.” |
 Scott, David and the “A” team. |
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