Don Barker Wins First Region II Championship and the Jim Karr Trophy

2012 Region II Championship Start

2012 Region II Championship Start

Chestertown, Maryland’s, Don Barker, grabbed the Region II Championship at Tred Avon Yacht Club in Oxford, Maryland on October 27th.  The Oxford Fleet presented a perpetual trophy in honor of Jim Karr, who brought the first RC Laser fleet to the Mid-Atlantic area. The trophy will be the Jim Karr RC Laser Region II Trophy and competed for annually among the region’s RC Laser fleets. With freshening Northeast winds on the front end of Hurricane Sandy, the 17 boat fleet donned C sails and braved a tricky chop for 18 heats of Promotion Relegation sailing. Fortunately the weather was in the 60’s and no rain arrived. Don nosed out West Jersey’s Ryan Lippincott by four points and fleet-mate, Roger Vaughan by six points. Jim Flach, sailing in only his third RC Laser regatta, grabbed 4th place and Manhattan’s Hank Buchanan rounded out the top five.  The top four spent the day consistently staying in the top fleet while the rest of the fleet moved up and down the two fleets. At one point in the day, Bob Roe sailed in 6 heats in a row between the A and B fleets. As a testament to skippers paying attention to boat management, we had only a couple equipment holds for the entire day.

Don Barker, left, accepts Jim Karr Perpetual Trophy from Jim Karr

Don Barker, left, accepts Jim Karr Perpetual Trophy from Jim Karr

Here is link to pictures from Jim Flach

https://picasaweb.google.com/jim.flach/2012RegionIIRCLaserChampionship

Link to Pictures from Bob Roe

https://picasaweb.google.com/dbranning11/2012RCLRegionals#

RESULTS
Place Skipper Points
1 Don Barker 21
2 Ryan Lippincott 25
3 Roger Vaughan 27
4 Jim Flach 35
5 Hank Buchanan 49
5 Jamey Betz 45
6 Rob Seidelmann 49
7 Nick Mortgu 60
8 Bob Roe 65
9 Harry Henkel 76
10 Terry Rapp 77
11 Jim Karr 82
12 Victor Oberg 91
13 Roger Baldwin 93
14 Rick Ferguson 110
15 Dan Stomka 122
16 John Tochko 125