We had put out the word we were looking for a bigger boat for cruising. We were racing the catamaran at the time. Before we moved to TN in 2000, we had free use of Mom and Dad’s C22 in Shreveport where we lived. We never raced it, just Friday nigh cruises with friends. After racing cats, it did not make much sense to try to race a C22.
We got “the call” a few days before the Christmas break of 2001. A friend in Tullahoma called and said he had a C22 for sale. Someone donated it to the Boy Scouts and he picked it up for $1000. He said it needed some work. Someone else had first shot at it. Kathy agreed to go look at it the following Sat. At this price we both expected a junker. This amount is negligible compared to the money we would sink into it in the next few years.
The boat looked pretty good. Solid hull, but needed some cleaning. There was a motor, but no guarantee of it working. The sails were original and in one piece. It was on a loaner trailer. The bottom had blisters and the keel had some huge rust bubbles on it. The person first in line decided not to get it at this time, so we wrote a check for the boat on the spot. The guy who passed on it regretted it for years and has finally bought a C22.
We spent most of our Christmas vacation cleaning the boat and doing some minor repairs. The boat was in great shape. I decided to ignore the bottom and keel till later. The motor started on the third pull after figuring out I needed to connect the kill switch plug. A racing buddy from the club came up to help and I remember telling him “This boat is just for cruising, we aren’t going to race it”. He was laughing then and still reminds me of this. We were able to launch in time for the HYC New Year’s Day sail and took a few friends.
Since the back of our main was coming apart, we found a deal on a new sail from CD. Looking back, I should have spent a little more and bough a racing main, Gus. The up side is, the main from Ullman is heavier and is still in great shape today. I also bought a mylar genoa off e-bay. It was a North 135. Another mistake, the only headsail you need to race a C22 is a 150. But at least we had some decent rags up.
We did a lot of sailing the next
year. In the fall
someone, probably David B., talked us into trying the Tennessean
Regatta at HIYC. Had not done a lot of monoslug racing so we recruited an
expert from the club to go with us.
After a trip to the car wash to get some of the larger rust
chunks off the keel, we headed up to the city.
We had no idea it was a distance
race. It was heavy air
which is my preference. We
had just bought a whisker pole, which would help immensely.
We got a third on Sat out of 5 or 6.
John and Craig almost passed us at one point with 4 people on
the boat. They were
sailing together with their wives.
Craig did not have a boat yet and there were no babies yet.
Donna was way up in the front with David B. behind her.
That night Jeff spent some time tuning the rigging. This would turn out to make the difference. We were doing better on Sunday keeping the lead boats within reach. After rounding the last mark the first three boats were close. With Jeff advising on the tactics we were able to pick them off on the way to the finish line and finish first. Winning the last race also broke a three-way tie for 1st in the Regatta. At that point I was hooked. The C22 racing is all I have been doing lately, and the cat is gathering dust.
Over the winter we bought a trailer, and the next few years we did every regatta we could find within a reasonable range. That is how she got her name, Rode Trip.
Mike
Wasner 2004