John Sherry Wins 4th Annual Woodruff Invitational

Photos by Kathleen Tracy

For the fourth year now long-time Hobie sailors, Stan and Sharon Woodruff, have literally opened up their architecturally glamorous new house to top Wave sailors from around the country. Stan has even amassed his own fleet of six boats to accommodate those from far away who did not want to drag a boat a long distance.
The house is located on the southeast corner of Tampa Bay in Ruskin, Florida, and is an architectural dream, designed and built by a young man striving to be another Frank Lloyd Wright. The home is constructed of hand-made wooden beams, glass and steel. Pictures below will give you just idea of how awesome this place is. It has been featured in national magazines as well.

The only thing that exceeded the home, was the open hospitality of Stan and Sharon. They had food and drinks available constantly and even hired a caterer to be sure everyone was fed and watered at all times. Several of the competitors pitched in and helped prepare some of the meals that were simply awesome. Bruce “Wrinkly” Fields prepared several awesome meals
Sailors came from Ohio, Delaware, Indiana, Arkansas and obviously, Florida. So, many arrived on Thursday just to enjoy the Florida warmth, although there has not been a whole lot of that going around this winter. Arriving early, most managed to stuff themselves with gourmet food the entire weekend.
Competition was pretty fierce, particularly between John Sherry, Jeff Linton and Skip Kaub. In attendance three past National Champions, three World Champions, a couple of North American Champs and others that have been champs in other classes. You had to know this was going to be a tough regatta.

No one was shy at the starts. All fifteen boats in the fleet were battling it out for a good position

Here Jeff Linton (red, white and blue sail) leads John Sherry (clear sail)

The Races
The fleet of fifteen boats tacked out of Little Manatee River into the Bay in moderate westerly winds of around 8-10 mph with a bit of chop. New to the Wave, Jeff Linton wasted no time figuring it out and took a bullet to start off the series, following in by Skip Kaub, Rick White, Ray Matuszak and Sharon Woodruff.
The second race started in dying winds and by the time the fleet got to the second beat it totally died.., never to recover. The race was abandoned and the sailors limped back to the mansion of a home and partied the rest of the day.
On the second day the winds did a 180 shift and filled in nicely from the east. John Sherry nailed the first start and motored easily to be first around the weather mark. He never looked back, but had he looked back, he would have seen Skip Kaub and Jeff Linton nipping at his heels. They finished in that order,

Betty Bliss of Put-ini-Bay, Ohio was a Women's Hobie 18 World Champion. She finished in 7th place overall
The next two races Linton diced it out with Sherry and took two aces, which Sherry being the bridesmaid in both cases. It all came down to the last race of the day. And Sherry won it. Sherry and Linton both had only six points and the last race was the tie breaker. Only three points behind was Skip Kaub, followed by Ray Matuszak and Jim Glanden.

Rick White started off well, but slowly dropped in the rankings

Jim Glanden (335) naile the port favored line. He finished on the podium in 5th place

Regatta Host Stan Woodruff had a nice lead around the leeward mark. Stan finished in 6th place

Ray Matuszak from Put-in-Bay, Ohio has a good leeward mark rounding and finished in fourth overall

Skip Kaub, lead boat, was almost always one of the top finisher and was only 3 points behind the first place boats.

Rick White (50) round the C Mark ahead of Jim Glanden (yellow and orange sail), while Sharon Woodruff take the outside Pinwheel route.

Jeff Linton (red, white and blue sail) approaching the leeward mark, with Bruce Fields (59) on the outside.

Results are below:

	2011 Woodruff Invitational
	2011 Woodruff Invitational

Rank	Sail No	Helm	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Nett
1	106	John Sherry	7.0	1.0	2.0	2.0	1.0	6.0
2	1	Jeff Linton	1.0	3.0	1.0	1.0	4.0	6.0
3	17	Skip Kaub	2.0	2.0	9.0	3.0	2.0	9.0
4	24	Ray Matuszak	4.0	4.0	6.0	7.0	3.0	17.0
5	335	Jim Glanden	8.0	6.0	10.0	6.0	8.0	28.0
6	6	Stan Woodruff	OCS	5.0	4.0	5.0	DNF	30.0
7	16	Betty BLiss	11.0	8.0	5.0	11.0	7.0	31.0
8	3	Doug Seib	9.0	13.0	8.0	9.0	6.0	32.0
9	59	Bruce Fields	DNF	9.0	7.0	12.0	5.0	33.0
10	50	Rick White	3.0	14.0	13.0	4.0	DNF	34.0
11	711	Steve Abbey	13.0	11.0	3.0	8.0	DNF	35.0
12	117	Mike Powers	10.0	7.0	11.0	10.0	11.0	38.0
13	5	Sharon Woodruff	5.0	12.0	12.0	13.0	10.0	39.0
14	51	Dick Bliss	12.0	10.0	14.0	14.0	9.0	45.0
15	81	Chris Morgan	6.0	DNC	DNC	DNC	DNC	54.0