Ragtime Barred from Sled Event
Chris Welsh | August, 2006
Ragtime was invited (?) to race the 70’s Sled event, and I, owner of Ragtime, helped get other boats involved. They now have 7 entries, plus us. They denied us entry yesterday by phone, saying we are 65′ long, not a 70′ sled, and we were not actually “invited”.
This morning, I went to attend the Skipper’s Meeting. The PRO, Bobby Frazier, Rear Commodore of LBYC, saw me and asked if we were racing. I told him we were there to attend the Skipper’s Meeting. His response was “look, we told you yesterday, you’re not racing. Are you a member of this yacht club?” I said no. He then said loudly ” Leave. Leave now.” I said I thought we should see what happened at the skipper’s meeting. He fetched the club manager and asked that I be ejected from the club premises. Literally. The Club Manager asked that I move to the front of the club, and after discussion, called their Commodore and asked me to let him air out the situation. The manager complemented me for being as level headed as I was, and when I was explaining what had happened said with surprise “The Ragtime? The one with the model in the hallway?” and agreed that things did not reflect well on LBYC at that moment.
The Commodore of LBYC, Conrad Banks, called me a few minutes after I was removed to deliver the news that Ragtime was in fact disinvited. He said directly that Mike Campbell and Peligroso were sponsoring the event, and what they wanted was going to happen. When I questioned the wisdom of this, he said “look, I’m just the messenger. I’ve got other things to attend to this morning. They don’t want you to race.”
Humourously, he invited me and my crew to come by for the evening cocktail party after the race…I told him that sounded pretty distasteful, given the situation, and he allowed that he understood my outlook.
It is distressing to see one boat dictating who and what will race, under the guise of yacht club regatta sponsorship. Personally, I think LBYC’s status should be reviewed by US Sailing. Our exclusion is particularly annoying because we rushed out of the yard this week in order to get there. I had spoken with their race coordinator, Alex, last week to tell him we were coming, and see who else was attending, and Alex gave me the details about med mooring on the long dock, etc.
The prospect of “Invitational” events is bad for sailing. In this case, it’s cowardly, and in general, it’s exclusionary. It is not what will keep more people involved in the sport. The logical comeback is for more clubs to become selective about who can race in retaliation.
Ragtime is in a rare position among sleds. She was the first. To say she’s not a sled is a joke in any conversation. The races are being run under Americap, not boat for boat, so the “70” thing is corrected for. We shadowed the fleet to weather today, and then downwind, and defeated any argument that we aren’t able to race with the other sleds boat for boat. Pretty good for a 42 year old boat.
The actions taken by LBYC, and by Peligroso and its owners, aren’t Cornithian, and don’t respect the sport or its history. The motivation, best as we can tell, is Peligroso does not want to race us in Transpac, or ID 48’s, or TP 52’s, so her way out is to try and create a class without them – and without us. Hopefully, by airing this issue, their goals will be thwarted.
There are two ironies about this situation. First, every skipper walked by LBYC’s beautiful half model of Ragtime on the way to the skipper meeting. Second, Ragtime was bought out of New Zealand and moved to the USA after being outlawed for being too fast down under – and now, history repeats itself.
In retrospect, I’m glad they actually threw me out of the yacht club. It put a nice dot on the exclamation point of how poorly this was handled.
Chris Welsh
Ragtime
USA 7960
Here are the original emails:
(Mark Callahan is the paid skipper on Peligroso)
From: CallahanYach…..com
Date: August 17, 2006 8:58:10 AM PDT
To: Chris Welsh
Subject: Re: Sled Regattas AGAIN
Good Morning,
Thank you for your fast and positive reply and for forwarding the email. I will be in contact again very soon.
Thank you,
Mark
——-———–
In a message dated 8/17/2006 8:39:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, ragtime@….com writes:
Ragtime is in – thanks!
I cc’d Tim Hogan/Westerly and Don Ayres for forward to Doug Ayres/Skylark.
Chris Welsh
Ragtime
USA 7960
——————
Hi there Chris,
I am writing to you, as to all the Sled (ULDB 70) owners, with the proposal of a new regatta. One just for Sled owners.
For some time now the owners that I work for, Mr. M.Campbell and Mr. D.Williams have talked of how good it would be to have a regatta held and run just for the SLEDS. Here in Long Beach where there was once great regattas with fast fun sailing on the ULDB 70 SLEDS.
Following some discussions of recent with LBYC committee it is a go. The Long Beach Yacht Club will provide staff, equipment and a venue from which to run a regatta on the last weekend of October.
Regatta Details
Date/s – October, Sat 28th + Sun 29th.
Location – Long Beach.
Racing – Saturday 3 races + Sunday 2 races.
Entry – $250 donation to the LBYC Junior Sailing Foundation.
Ratings – ORR (Americap). If a yacht does not have an ORR rating,
a suitable rating factor can be determined.
Events – Saturday, hors d’oeuvres party ($10/person), no host bar.
– Sunday, prize giving.
Docking – provided courtesy of LBYC.
This could be the start of a rejuvenation for the sled fleet racing and what will surely be a fantastic regatta for Sled owners.
Please email or call with your interest for participating in this event.
Thank you,
Mark
Long Beach Ca