Some Flying Scot sailboats approach a mark during one of the races in last weekend's Choo-Choo regatta hosted by Privateer Yacht Club on Chickamauga Lake.Chattanooga architect Rob Fowler got his new boat and a first-place finish in the Choo-Choo Regatta for Flying Scots last weekend on Chickamauga Lake, both courtesy of Harry Carpenter of Oakland, Md.
The 29 19-foot boats were the most in the history of that particular regatta hosted by Privateer Yacht Club, which is in the midst of five consecutive weekends of major events for different classes of sailboats. The Flying Scots came from as far away as Florida and Wisconsin, with entries also from Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina.
Mark and Michelle Taylor of Tampa were close runners-up in the four-race series, and Ed and Tom Craig of Privateer were third with Richard Wade and Jim Leonard of Birmingham fourth and Ryan Malmgren and Stacy Rieu of Madison, Wis., fifth.
This weekend is the Catalina 22 Chattanooga Challenge, which is the Tennessee state championship for the 22-foot one-design keelboat.
Fowler won't be taking part this Saturday and Sunday. He'll be helping, as he does every year, move a 100-foot boat from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands to Newport, R.I. He also is on the crew for the fall return trips.
But last weekend was fun in another way.
"Harry Carpenter is the boat builder - his company is Flying Scot, Inc. - and I bought a new boat from him," Fowler said Wednesday. "So I wouldn't have to go to Maryland to get it, I told him, 'If you'll deliver the boat I'll let you steer it (in the Choo-Choo), and I'll crew for you.'
"It worked out really well. He's a lot of fun to sail with, and we won."
Fowler has been a sailor and a PYC member since 1972, when he was an eighth-grader at McCallie School and a friend there invited him to go sailing with his family. Fowler served as the club's commodore in 1996 and 2013 and is the co-owner, with three other people, of a Wavelength 24 and also has a 15-foot single-hander he built in his garage from plans hand drawn in England on butcher paper.
Linda Lind is the current commodore, and Bill Robertson, the 2005 commodore, is the vice commodore for racing.
Brainard Cooper Jr. is a second-generation past commodore and was the principal race officer last weekend. He'll be the PRO again this weekend. His family joined PYC in 1951, 11 years after the club was established.
The week before the Flying Scots regatta, the club hosted the South Atlantic district championship for the 18-foot Thistle class, which recently has been revived at PYC after enjoying its heyday in the 1960s.
On May 7 PYC will host the 'Noogatta for 8-foot Optimist dinghy youth classes and Lasers for youth and lightweight adults. Then comes the MC Scowabunga for MC Scows the weekend of May 14-15.
Robertson admitted that having five consecutive weekends for beyond-local racing is "quite unusual" but pointed out that it works because different people are in charge. For instance, David Bergevin is PYC's fleet captain for Catalina 22s and this week's regatta chairman.
"We'll probably have about 20. It will be impossible to know till Saturday morning," said Robertson, a banker who began sailing catamarans in 1976 with the former Chickamauga Sailing Club. That club later was absorbed into PYC, which never had a catamaran fleet.
"I joined the club after I bought a Flying Scot," he said.
"Different clubs take different approaches," Robertson said. "For instance, the Percy Priest club in Nashville runs regattas with multiple classes every time. The approach we take is to give each class their own weekend, with only one class of boats at a time."
That's made for a busier spring even than usual for PYC, including an adaptive sailing camp last week for Wounded Warriors.
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.