By Jim Denys
Wow, with south winds 10-14mph what a great day of sailing on the Bolivar Peninsula. The 2019 Hardheads Bolivar RIG RUN enjoyed its largest turnout, with 18 boats registered, easily doubling the previous largest year. With boats and crew from Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Carthage, Center, Winnie, Galveston, Houston, and the Bolivar Peninsula, this year’s RIG RUN was an outstanding success.

Congratulations to Ricky Richards on his Hobie FX 17 for being the first to the beach in 48:30, great sailing Ricky! The RIG RUN uses corrected times over the actual time that attempts to allow boats from different classes to compete against one another. Using the Corrected Time, the First Place Trophy goes to The Young and The Restless with Brandon Buckley and Ernie Luce on a Hobie 16 from San Antonio crossing the finish line in 53:21 and corrected to 1:10:01, awesome job Brandon and Ernie!!! Second Place went to Shield Maiden with Tim Boudreaux and Risa Anthony from Galveston on a Hobie 16 coming in just 4 seconds behind at 1:10:05. Super job Tim and Risa! A great job by all of the sailors who came and enjoyed some of the best sailing of the year!

Club Pesca from Emerald I ran into some trouble when their mast came down as they approached the rig. Shawn Pachlehofer from the Bluewater Addition, offered to have his jet ski on standby should anybody need assistance. Shawn was on the scene shortly after throwing a tow line to sailors Chad Creagh and Scott Langdale. Unfortunately, Shawn’s jet ski stalled and would not start the 2 vessels drifted down wind towards barrels 80-100. Chad and Scott using the sail allowed them to make it to the beach first about 4PM. Using binoculars, we could see the sailboat drifting towards shore and figured it was a slow tow by jet ski.

About 3pm we confirmed Shawn Pachlehofer on the Jet ski was not with them and his jet ski was taking on water out at the rig. Once we confirmed this, we called Bob Currie with the Coast Guard Auxiliary to help us coordinate the search as well launching 5 separate sailing teams to head out to look for Shawn. Drifting at a much slower rate Shawn was eventually spotted by the Coast Guard helicopter and was picked up by the Galveston Coast Guard rescue vessel around 4:30 after being in the water for 3 ½ hours. We sure appreciate the Coast Guard team in their recovery efforts.

All in all, the 2019 Hardheads Bolivar RIG RUN was a tremendous success and we look forward to next year. We would like to thank all of our sailors, the Bolivar community, and most of all our sponsors Jason and Andrea Kapchinski from Hardheads and their wonderful, hard working team, helped make the 5th Annual RIG RUN the most successful to date. We would also like to thank David Harris with the Bolivar Tourism Center who helped promoting the RIG RUN.

FIRST PLACE (53:21:00 / 1:10:01)
Team: YOUNG & THE RESTLESS, Hobie 16 (64120)
Skipper: ERNIE LUCE, Crew: BRANDON BUCKLEY

SECOND PLACE (53:25:00 / 1:10:05)
Team: SHIELD MAIDEN, Hobie 16 (114393)
Skipper: RISA ANTHONY, Crew: TIM BOUDREAUX

THIRD PLACE (48:30:00 / 1:11:00)
Team: RUACH, Hobie FX17 (98)
Skipper: RICKY RICHARDSON

[8-19-2019]