Phil Yee reporting:

The VCB Youth Race was won by the Sound School’s “Miss Perfect” team (16:47) over New York Harbor School’s “Double D” team (17:29), and “Kiss My Aft” (19:56) took 3rd Place and Stuyvesant’s “Small Hands Big Strokes” (20:03) came in 4th.

The Girls Race was shorter and another Sound School Team “Kiss my Stern” (8:49) over Harbor Schools “Spice Girls”(9:29). We had Eleven (11) Youth Crews and Two (2) Alumni Crews.

In the Alumni race the Alter Kackers bested the Project Open Water in the Head to Head Final when an untimely crab was caught. The two had traded victories in the two heats of the Buoy Perimeter Race. The Alumni teams had declined the Nautical Mile.

In the Buoy Perimeter Race “Miss Perfect” (6:11.3) and “Kiss My Aft” (6:13.8) earned a bye in the Head to Head going directly into the finals.

In the Head to Head Sprints: “Small Hands Big Strokes” petted the Sound Schools “Dog Lovers”, and spoiled Harbor Schools “Dream Team” Dream for advancing into the final; In the second head to head No one could “kiss My Aft” from Harbor School, Stuyvesant’s NO! cried their team’s name came in second, They both said “see ya later” to the Sound School team of the same name, and Stuyvesant’s “Youth 2” came in forth.

The race preparation started a week prior as the burgers and hot dogs were brought in with soda, with Phil and Mary Nell Hawk involved. Sally Curtis made a Costco run on Wednesday with David Clayton and Phil helping unload at Pier 40. On the morning of the race Mary Nell made the a fish chowder and Frank picked up the bagels. Henry was already there putting on the final touches on the sound system. Pablo Garcia was there early to push the boats out and launch boats with a helpful Harbor School student. Ruth Lindner cut the bagels.

THEN:

We lost power in the West side of the boathouse, so no electricity to heat water or coffee, prompting Frank to get Dunkin Donuts coffee. We tried resetting the breaker between the plugs to no avail. We found extension cords and ran power from the New York Kayak Company to power the davit. The Stuyvesant High School Alumni Alex, Brian and Eric, along the with Marcel Dejean performed the boat checks and established territorial authority over the floating dock. Mary Nell started registration of the teams and then outsourced it Brian and Eric C., Paul worked the leaderboard perfectly. Two Harbor School related adults were recruited as Judges as were Ruth and Andrew, Mike was the Master of Ceremonies who had fun with the names of the crews. Eric R. was the race starter, Hillary sold T-shirts.

Ingo arrived and took the chase boat out with Sally and Deborah Clearman. Volunteers continued to arrive and were put to work Margaret cutting and dicing Tomatoes and lettuce, Tizoc ‘Cano Gomez and Open Water Crew was going to be deployed on the floating dock but were waved off by Alex.
Roger Longley and Kelly from the Downtown Boathouse worked the grill. As the college crews had their heats, Paul calculated the combined times on the leaderboard. The race went into the second segment the Head to Head elimination. We had a representative from each organization at the finish line to determine the winner. Hans Minnich was VCB’s representative. Teresa came back from college to work the dock for a while.
It was fun and warm, everyone had a good time. The next day we found large containers of pretzels and cheese calls were hidden propping up a board that told people not to put their bags in the area.
Sunday adult rowers consumed the cheese balls as feverishly as the kids would have. We were suspicious that Cheese Balls were hidden for a reason, but we didn’t ponder that for too long as we each reached into the container for more.

Phil Yee