Chesapeake Racer Profile by Molly Winans
Wayne Bretsch
F
ollowing his first sailing experiences on a Sailfish as a 12-year-old Boy Scout at Camp Portaferry in Upstate New York, Wayne Bretsch, at age 14, worked for his dad for 10 weeks, 40 hours per week, for one dollar per hour. With his $400 summer savings, he bought a 16-foot knockabout. “My mother thought I was nuts to waste my money on a toy,” he says. Following college, graduate school, and a move to Maryland, he and his wife Gretchen enjoyed crewing together on the Cal 29 Galt’s Gulch and then bought their own boat, the Pearson 30 Conaetus, and later, the Beneteau 345 Interlude. Shortly after becoming a member of Annapolis YC in 1980, he volunteered for race committee (RC). “Not knowing that was for the older guys.” They asked him if he had a blue blazer and a yacht club tie; the former he owned, the latter, he bought. “It’s funny they didn’t ask if I had a hand-bearing compass.” Upon learning that a good way to learn the rules was to serve on a protest committee, he volunteered for that duty as well. Now certified as a U.S. Sailing senior judge and national race officer, Bretsch celebrates 33 years of RC service, with at least half of those including RC stints at Quantum Key West Race Week (KWRW), 14 of them as a principal race officer. Bretsch notes that the 2013 KWRW division three RC will consist of four mark boats manned by three RC volunteers each and a signal boat of 10 volunteers, including the owner and his wife. “Of the 22 people there, 20 of them were there last year,” he says. “It’s like going back and working and playing with old friends.” One such friend is his wife, also a RC veteran. “My goal is to go out and run races and have the competitors scratching their heads at the party about who the RC members are. I like to use the analogy that if you don’t remember who the basketball official was, then nothing went wrong during the game.” Among the out-of-town regattas, the Annapolis RC volunteer will travel to in 2013 are Charleston Race Week (Charleston, SC), Youngstown Level Regatta (Youngstown, NY), Sonar Worlds (Rochester, NY), and the Beneteau 36.7 North American Championships (Chicago, IL). Although he loves such regattas, he admits, “I am obviously biased, but I think KWRW is one of the best regattas in the United States.”
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What are some of the most common mistakes you see from your vantage point on the race boat? One of the easiest things to do is to take down the spinnaker early rather than waiting until the mark. Many sailors wait too long to take it down… Also, if you don’t have any speed at the start line, you get rolled. We often see sailors park their boats at the start line. What are some of the brave or admirable things you have seen? I’ve seen sailors offer assistance to others in peril (it says to do so in the rules, but not everyone does). I’ve seen a collision after which the owner at fault offered his boat, which was still sailable, to the other skipper. I’ve seen racers do two things: request redress because they thought the results did not reflect their performance— and others who came in to say that they did not think they finished that well… The most admirable thing a racer can do is to walk up to the RC volunteers and say, “Thank you,” and offer positive, constructive criticism. What would surprise sailors about what happens on the race committee boats? The communication between the mark and signal boats is constant. We talk about wind, timing, mark roundings… Also, how intense and focused the team is at the start. What gear do you depend upon at KWRW? Steiner binoculars, Gill foul weather gear, and an Eberhard Faber #2 pencil with yarn taped to it. What are your favorite restaurants in Key West? Turtle Kraals Restaurant & Bar and Kelly’s Caribbean Bar, Grill, & Brewery. SpinSheet January 2013 67