MELON FELONS DELAY START; TEAM A TRIUMPHANT
The third annual Great Greased Watermelon Grab included something for everyone this year, from dramatic start to rollicking finish!
The goal: be the first team to bring back four greased melons, one at a time. The sailing instructions: anything goes, but you must beach the boat before running the melon to your melon basket. Competitors: randomly drawn teams. The course: round the mark, grab a melon, and bring it back to the beach before the other team does!
The mark was set, the melon patch - a purple mesh float containing 12 oily melons - was anchored in place, and all was ready. As the intrepid crews and eager audience trooped down to the beach to get started, someone asked "Where are the melons?" A trio of teenaged girls on a surfboard were spotted paddling away with the loaded melon patch. Shouts and calls from the shoreline got the Melon Felons' attention and the melons were successfully restored to position. The Melon Felons had untied the anchor line, but the clear water made it easy to spot the anchor, so it was put right back - although the oil slick stretching fifty yards downwind was helpful as well!
Three teams of four sailors, randomly drawn from Luke Slosar's hat, competed in three heats. And they were heated races! Madly paddling crewmembers worked up a sweat in the sticky air as the skippers tried to find a breeze, any breeze at all. Luke Slosar, Pat McLaughlin, Barb Short, and Fleet Captain Jim Enright made up Team A; MaryLou Chamber, Ginette Hughes, Tom Witmer, and Dick Slosar were on Team B; and Sharon Slosar, Christopher Slosar, Sandi Younger, and Kyle Christoffel were on Team C.
The heats included some contact between boats and sailors as the skippers jockeyed for position and the crewmembers (aka melon grabbers) attempted to pull other melon grabbers off their boat! Team B was in the lead for a while during the first heat, but Team A came from behind and pulled off a smart finish. In the next heat, Team C soundly drubbed Team B, which was exhausted from its previous race. After a short break to let "Melon" Mike Hughes restock the melon patch, Jay "Hornblower" Younger gave the ready, set, GO for the third and final heat between Teams A & C.
It was wheel to wheel racing until the second to last lap, when Team C lost a lot of ground. In an attempt to even the match, Christopher Slosar led a boarding party onto Team A's boat, which was carrying its fourth and last melon to the shore. Skipper Pat successfully fended Chris off and Barb tucked the valuable melon into her arms, as Sandi and Sharon swam out to assist Chris. At the end, all members of Team A and Team C (with the exception of Kyle, whom Chris had abandoned on the Team C boat) were tussling on one boat, providing the peanut gallery on the jetty with a hilarious scene. All ended well, there was only one casualty (a mistreated melon) and Team A won bragging rights - until next year's GREAT GREASED WATERMELON GRAB!
Fleet Captain Fish, recuperating after a strenuous run with the victorious Team A.