Rivera Wins Hangover Bowl

In yesterday's post I mentioned in passing the New Year's Day Hangover Bowl Regatta at my old Laser frostbiting fleet at Cedar Point YC in Connecticut. The godfather of that fleet was a gentleman called Eric Robbins who moved to Florida a few years ago and is now sailing out of Davis Island YC in Tampa. It seems that Eric has transferred the Hangover Bowl tradition to his new club.

Here is an account (by the aforementioned Eric Robbins) of the Davis Island YC 2011 Hangover Bowl, which was won by none other than my blogging friend Antolin Rivera, the sailing potter (or should that be potting sailor) who writes the most excellent blog Bel Mar Sailing, Pottery and Yacht Sales.

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Antolin Rivera, sailing his Laser “Cheesecake”, dominated the Second Annual Hangover Bowl on New Year’s Day. Although he bested Craig Carlson’s Windmill “Red Baron” on a tiebreaker, it really wasn’t that close, as Antolin posted three bullets in the five races for the eight-boat fleet.

Skip Ryan and Susie Crump assisted Eric Robbins on the signal boat, while Judy Hanlon served with Jim and Claire Titgemeyer on a very busy mark boat.

Racing in a 6-9k southerly under sunny skies, with temps in the 70s, Colin Browning with crew Nikki, in his Windmill renamed “Happy Birthday Nikki” for the day, topped the first contest, a “normal” windward-leeward, over Craig, with Dawn Narramore’s Flying Scot “Lasagna Hog” in third. The winner of each race earned a prize of a “nip” bottle, to be consumed immediately. The effects seemed to be cumulative, except for Antolin.

The second heat, with a course of windward, leeward around the signal boat, windward, and finish downwind stern-first(!), was won handily by Antolin, despite his whining about the backwards finish. Craig and Dawn placed 2-3 again.

A triangle was set for the third race, with each boat required to do a 360 spin on each of the four legs. Antolin again showed the way, leading Lee Smith (in the oldest Laser seen at DIYC in decades) and Dawn.

The Race Committee then announced the feature race, called “Come Within Chug”. After racing around the weather mark, the boats were required to run past the signal boat and collect beers, round the leeward mark, then return the empties to the Race Committee while sailing the second lap. Antolin thought he just had to carry the unopened beer, but when reminded that he need to deposit his empty, chugged half of it while reaching back to the signal boat. Since the Race Committee did not appreciate his toss of a half-finished can, he was penalized with a 360-spin, but still won his third race. Craig took second, ahead of Pat Crump with Jane in his Fireball “Mr. Rogers”. Colin and Nikki seemed to have trouble with this one, straggling across last, but now very chatty.

Sailors had a choice of course for the last race. They would sail either windward-leeward, or leeward-windward. During the starting sequence, the race committee noticed that Antolin was leading the regatta by four points, so called him over-early due to his whining. Pat and Jane led the five boats who started upwind, while Colin and Nikki, now animated as well as chatty, topped the downwind starters.

Antolin won the regatta with 14 points, and posed for photos with the Hangover Bowl Perpetual Trophy, a full-size toilet bowl. He has not yet offered enough money to prevent their publication.