Cal960

Call them elephants. Call them bathtubs. Call them basketballs with a sticks on top. They may not be the fastest boats competing here at the 2011 Sperry Top-Sider Detroit NOOD, but the Cal 25s are arguably the most competitive. The 17-boat fleet is the event’s largest, and the racing between these built-for-cruising 25-footers is neck and neck all the way around the racecourse.

So what makes these odd little boats so popular in Michigan? It’s simple, explains Rose Alee crewmember Tyson Conway: camaraderie and economics. “In this area, with how depressed the economy has been, it’s nice not to have to dump a ton of money into the boat,” he says. “You can be pretty competitive on a tight budget. Sure, you’ve got to have good sails, but first and foremost, you’ve got to have a good crew and a good skipper to get the job done.

“The camaraderie between the Port Huron fleet and the Detroit fleet is fantastic,” continues Conway, a former commodore of Port Huron YC. “These relationships make the Detroit NOOD a can’t-miss event. As you can see [points to the throng of Cal 25 sailors gathered around a keg on the dock] the social scene is great. Everybody gets along and has a good time, and there’s limited yelling on the racecourse…for the most part!”

Salt ‘N Pepper skipper Pete Irland has been racing Cal 25s for decades, and he’s come to love the boats for their eccentricities. “The boat’s a bathtub,” he says. “You’ve got to steer ’em all the time. They don’t really want to go to weather on their own. In some ways, that’s a negative, but it’s also kept them viable.

“The other thing about the Cal,” continues Irland, “it’s got a flat deck. It makes it easy for people who are more mature to get around. On a lot of boats, the cabin takes up most of the space, and you’re walking through this little narrow space. With the flat deck, it makes it really easy to work in tight situations.”

The Cal 25’s user-friendly deck layout helps keep old goats in the class and allows new sailors to hop aboard at an early age, which makes it the perfect family racer. “There’s a father-son dynamic on a lot of the boats,” says Conway, who got his start in the class crewing for his father and Irland. “Pete [Irland] sails with his son, Kevin. I’m racing with Mark DenUyl, who owns [Rose Alee] with his father and Don Dupuie. You’ve got [Clytie skipper] Dale Marshall, who races with his son, Nathan, you’ve got the Shumakers on Pirogue—I guess that’s what makes the class interesting. The boat that’s winning right now [Paul Nuechterlein’s Never Alone] has a 12-year-old boy aboard. That’s fantastic to see, because that’s what I was a couple of years ago.”

_For complete coverage of the 2011 Sperry Top-Sider Detroit NOOD, click here; for results, click here.
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Detroit960

The Sperry Top-Sider NOOD series rolls into Detroit’s Bayview YC this weekend. The fifth stop on the tour promised to be a blast on and off the water. Here are a few classes to watch when racing begins Friday morning.

S2 7.9 Steeve Beeler and Tom Vigrass of Frequent Flyer aren’t the only travelers in this fleet of road warriors. Like the Port Huron-based Flyer program, Roger Gamache’s Matros and John Spierling’s REBEL teams have already competed at NOOD events in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Annapolis, Md., this year. So far, Beeler and Vigrass hold the series lead, having taken first-place in the Sunshine State and second-place in Naptown, but Gamache and company have been close on their heels every step of the way. Check out our video spotlight on the S2 7.9 class at the 2011 Sperry Top-Sider St. Petersburg NOOD.

Cal 25 The 17-boat Cal 25 class will be the regatta’s largest, and there’s sure to be a hard-fought battle to fill the void left by last year’s champions, Stuart Thompson and the crew of Obsured By Clouds, who won three of seven races. Look for Bayview YC’s John Shumaker (Pirogue) or Crescent Sail YC’s Paul Nuechterlein (Never Alone) to make a run for the money.

**T-10 **Of the 12 boats competing in the Tartan Ten class, several teams have the experience to take home the pickle dish. Mike and Beth Eckstein’s Demon Rum team is an obvious pick, coming off its victory at the 2010 T-10 North American Championship, which took place at Bayview YC. Doug Scheibner and the crew of Friendship are returning to defend their victory at last year’s event, but I’ve got a feeling Britsar‘s Ken Schram, who filled in for Scheibner at the 2010 NOOD Championship in the British Virgin Islands, will be doing his best to land another Caribbean vacation. And don’t count out the gang on Kim and Gary Disbrow’s Think Blue—this veteran team from Vermillion, Ohio, is no stranger to the peculiarities of Lake St. Clair.

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