Inaugural Race Results -

December 14, 2003

Only a minute separated the first and second-place getters in Sunday’s inaugural Mieco Beach Yacht Club race, with the yacht Roxanne, skippered by Tom Petty, taking line honors and first place on corrected time.

Sailing under international handicapping rules, four boats competed in the race, which started at 2pm off the Outrigger Resort (now Marshall Islands Resort).

First across the line after the traditional pre-start waltz was Seal, skippered by Cary Evarts. The relatively small traditional sloop was, however, quickly overtaken by the super-speed yacht Roxanne.

The race course took boats in an anti-clockwise direction from the Outrigger, with the first mark being Charlie Domnick’s Miss Tamioko, the second mark a transshipment vessel near Ejit Island, and the third mark being Central Shoals in the middle of the lagoon off Enamanet Island.

The second boat around the course and third-place getter on corrected time was the yacht Kaimana, skippered by Ron Douglas.  And last, but not least, was the graceful ketch Karmaladen, owned by Rixzene Ayers and skippered on the day by Ash Shepley.

The wind on race day started light, but as the start drew near, the white horses started galloping across the waves, with skippers registering 15 to 20 knots.

To complicate matters, with just 10 minutes to start time, two new yachts to Majuro motored into the anchorage off the Weather Station, unaware that they were in the vicinity of a race.

The two yachts have boosted the already record number of yachts in town.

Following the race, there was a noisy awards ceremony in the Jakaro Bar of the Outrigger, which was superbly emceed by the new commodore of the Mieco Beach Yacht club, attorney Dee Johnson.

Up for grabs before race day was a free night’s accommodation at the Outrigger, some gift certificates from EZ Price, prizes from the Marshall Islands Visitors Authority and a couple of free classified ads from the Journal.

Making the prize pool even fatter, though, were Marshalls Energy Company’s Billy Roberts and Aloha’s John Hawley, who had both stopped by the Outrigger to catch the sailing action. “Attention the fleet,” announced Grant James on the VHF radio. “MEC has kindly donated a drum of diesel and John Hawley has put in some Budweiser chairs for race prizes.”

The top place getters won bragging rights, while the prizes were awarded by skippers drawing numbers from Johnson’s straw hat.

In a fitting turn of events, last place getter Karmaladen scored the cream of the prize crop by plucking out the night at the hotel and the drum of diesel.