Holder 20 Experience
By Rod TerBeest

 

Sailing At the Holder 20 Nationals by Rod TerBeest

 

As you know I also race a Holder 20 at the Lake Waconia Yacht Club.  This is my 4th season racing the Holder 20.  I never intended to buy a one

When I was looking for a boat that I could keep at home at my dock for after work sailing and such.  The boat made sense to me when Matt Gundlach, a long time racing rival, made the case for me to get one.   I bought the boat, Turbulence, from a sailor in Wisconsin and brought it home.  The first year I raced it I lost to Gundlach at least 40 times. After investing in new sails and upgrades to the boat, I finally started winning some races.  Matt and I began a program of fleet building by purchasing Holder 20s and bringing them back to Minnesota to resell to prospective racer in our program.  So far we have brought back 4 boats to add to our fleet.

 

After a few wins locally, I wanted to see how good I really was.  I have been in national and international competition before in the International 14 Class.  My first effort was to go to the Holder 20 midwinter's in San Diego in Feb. of 1999.  I asked Tim Carlson to crew with me.  Tim and I have been sailing together on and off for a number of years.   We got 4th place at the midwinters, but we could see that we were not that far off the pace.  So back to work on the boat and some more new sails, we set our sights on the 1999 Holder 20 nationals in July at Oxnard, CA.  We picked up another crew member, Paul Baumgardt, from Mankato.   Again we got 4th place; Sailing in the ocean is a different experience than on the inland lakes again we were not that far off the pace. 

 

Over the winter I bought another Holder 20, Quagmire, from one of the sailors who beat us at the 1999 nationals.  I intended to pick it up in CA when I came back out there this March to race in the 2000 nationals at Lake Mead, Nevada.

 

Paul and I left Minnesota about noon on Tuesday before the Nationals.  We drove all night and got to Denver about 4 AM on Wednesday morning.  We had planned to take I-70 across the mountains, but a spring snowstorm altered our route south to I-40. Matt Gundlach was a few hours ahead of us and just made it through the mountains. We got to Lake Mead that night and checked into the hotel.  Jim and Andrea Rosaschi, the Class Measurer and hosts of the nationals, were kind enough to pick up my boat from Oxnard on one of their trips to CA. They saved me a whole day of driving by their generosity. After a little running around Las Vegas to pick up a spare tire, we got Quagmire moved to the marina at Lake Mead.   Unfortunately we were not able to go sailing on Thursday to check the boat out. So the first time we sailed Quagmire was on the first day of the Nationals.  Fortunately, she is a lot like Turbulence so the transition was not too bad.  Being the "fat boys" crew we had low expectations for winning a light air regatta, but after the first race our expectations began to rise.   At the end of the day after 4 races we were in first place, I couldn't believe it.  The second day we had some bad luck and bad decisions, including blowing a lead at the start, running into Britta, a skipper from Nevada, at the leeward mark, and finding out that our engine had been stored in the forepeak.  After two days we had dropped to third.  The third day was do or die for us.  We had to win the last race and put Britta down to third to win the regatta, after our poor showing on Saturday things looked grim.  That night after a great dinner hosted by the Nevada Yacht Club, we had a crew strategy session to iron out our problems.

 

 After quite a long delay due to low winds, the race committee was able to get the final race started.   I really don't remember many details about any of the races. The assignments aboard our boat don't allow me to look around very much.  Tim watches the course while Paul does the muscle work, I just sit in the back and hold the tiller, it seems to work for us.  I remember we were in 3rd or 4th rounding the first windward mark and 2nd or 3rd at the bottom mark.  While most of the fleet went to the right we caught a lift to the left and put it us into 1st at the second windward mark. The rest of the race was the most stressful, frustrating, and exciting two legs of any race I have ever been in.  When we were only a couple hundred feet from the finish the wind started to die, those last few feet were agonizing. I remember a Hobie 33 crossing the finish very close to us.   About 30 seconds later Matt finished in second and sealed the championship for us.  I guess we may have been a little loud in our appreciation when the race committee abandoned the rest of the day and called it a regatta.  I apologize if anyone feels that we breached yachting protocol by cheering. 

 

Paul and I stayed in the West and spent a couple of days touring Hoover Dam and tourist attractions in San Diego.  Tim went home, and my daughters Liz and Melissa joined the crew for the NOOD Regatta.  The sailing in Coronado Bay was spectacular as always.  Congratulations to Darren Hamm for his win there.  Paul got a ride back to LV with the Rosaschi's to catch his flight back to MN and no he has not finished his paper yet.  I left San Diego on Monday morning with Quagmire in tow. I drove 300 miles through a snowstorm in Arizona and New Mexico and finally got home on Wednesday.  When I walked in the door at home my son and his girlfriend were watching a movie, they didn't even look up. All he said was "don't let it go to your head".  So much for national championships.

 

I want to thank Andrea Rosaschi and the Nevada Yacht club for showing us such a nice time.  I hope we can do as well when the nationals are in MN next year.  No venue or dates have been decided yet, but we will have that ironed out in plenty of time to make vacation plans.  The word is the whole West Coast fleet will be coming here next year.  I hope this will encourage any Holder 20's in the East to join us as well next year. 

 

So that is my nationals experience.  We currently have 2 Holder 20's for sale, Quagmire, the boat that I won the Nationals with this year at $6000, this boat is race ready. And Bold 20 at $4500, this boat needs some sails, but the hull is in really nice condition.  If any of you want to race in the 2001 nationals, the 2001 Holder 20 nationals are going to be in Minnesota.

 

Please call or email me if you are interested, 507 243 3993, or RTerBeest@aol.com.  Have a great summer.