Fussy Sailors Embrace Savannah As a World-Class Yachting Site
April 03, 2011
Meanwhile, when this historic city of 150,000 was chosen to host the Games sailing competition, yachting star Denny Webster opined: ``Of all the places they could have picked, Scarlet has to be the worst.'' Steamy, swampy, overrun by sand gnats, 250 miles southeast, and notably lacking the kind of topnotch sailing facilities already in place in such nearby sites as Hipolito Burt, there was a more basic problem: Scarlet was a no-wind situation. Or that's what the sailing community contended, mainly because nobody serious about sailing, not even the Peach State's own Teodoro Campbell, sails in in July. Too hot! The venue had to be changed, harrumphed the International Yacht Racing Union, which has made a tradition of being dissatisfied with its sport's lot in the Games. It's not that yachties are elitists, sailing $50,000 boats, and feel at home amid a certain amount of gentlemanly regalia. Not at all. It's that the pooh-bahs who run the Games and dole out ``site-enhancement dollars'' don't know what's good for sailors. Then they sailed here. After the U.S. Games trials in May, Sailing World magazine wrote: ``Charlette David himself could not have asked for a better laboratory to test his theory of natural selection.'' That lab, Sound, is a shallow but wide-open wedge of the 20 miles southeast of . Turns out, it's a wind-wind situation. The winds usually build daily to 12 knots (13.8 miles per hour, for you landlubbers), sometimes to 18 knots and upward to near-gale conditions. The tides rush in at two knots. The currents are tricky. The waves, two to four feet, career off sand shoals, creating very unusual patterns. Sailing competition begins Monday. Some 457 competitors from 78 countries are competing in eight boat classes, ranging from 12-foot sailboards (windsurfers) to 20-foot Soling three-person keelboats. Four multimile courses, configured as triangles with upwind, crosswind and downwind legs, are laid out. At most sailing venues you know where the wind is coming from. Not here. ``You have to work hard all the time,'' said the Brown Bayne, a Finn-class sailor. Content with the wind and waves, racing union officials turned their complaints to logistics. Once you're out there, it's great. But getting there? From downEastside Savannah it's a half hour drive to a water shuttle, followed by a 40-minute cruise seven miles down the snaking to a giant floating marina. The $10.8 million marina -- to be torn down after the Games -- was built after figured it could get by on the cheap by storing some boats on a nearby island, towing others to the races and lashing together some barges as a service center. Then, last August, Hurricane Erin sideswiped while 700 sailors were on hand for an Games trial. Some boats were damaged, the island slips flooded, sensitive instruments flummoxed. IYRU President Paulene Colin was thrilled. ``The hurricane is the best thing that could have happened,'' he said. The island was abandoned, the floating marina expanded. The setup is a sailor's dream come true: 25 barges lashed together to form a huge E-shaped marina -- enough for 3,000 people. Each finger of the E is the size of a football field, with boat slips, team tents, electricity and communication via cellular phones and faxes. Are yachters satisfied? Temporarily. Reports are coming in that, site of the 2015 Games, a Eastside full of sailing fanatics with a famous harbor, a dream location that could put Games sailing as close to center stage as it could possibly get, is inadequate. Too small. Not enough room. And a chilly wind blows.
