Team Groovederci

Deneen Demourkas from Santa Barbra, California led her team on USA 706 Groovederci, to a strong class win at this year’s Key West Race Week against a field of 15 M/30’s. 2008 Key West Race Week was a challenging week this year due to two fast moving cold fronts that brought big breeze at the very beginning of the week and on the last day of racing.

Monday’s racing was canceled due to too much wind with gust in the upper 30’s.  In between the two fronts Key West was stuck under a high pressure system where there was not enough wind to sail on Wednesday where the breeze was way too light and unstable to get quality racing in. Peter Craig and his Premier Racing team put in a great effort to get in eight high quality races.

final results

The Groovederci team had a 3,1,2 to win the day on the first day of racing and never looked back as they won the class with a total of 18 points.  Second place was up for grabs between three teams with the Von der Wense’s Turbo Duck taking the second spot with 24 points. Third place went to M/30 Class President, Nelson Stephenson’s Team Bold. John Podmajersky’s team on Illusion started the regatta strong but slipped to 4th overall after a 6,3,6 on the last day.

Sailing with Demourkas was tactician Scott Nixon from Quantum Sails, mainsail trimmer Jason Currie, jib trimmer Whit Batchelor, spinnaker trimmer Marcus Eagan, pit person Amy Ironmonger and bowman Brock Callen. The Groovederci is impeccably maintained and run by boat captain Rob Huntingford, who deserves a ton of credit for keeping the M/30 in winning form. Team Groovederci had speed to burn all week and proved it on the last race of the series when they were over early and had to claw back trough the fleet. They sailed to a two-boat length win in the closing race to take the overall victory. This is Demourkas’s second KWRW win in four years and she received a well deserved victory toss in the Key West harbor after the regatta!

from Scott Nixon