Wilkins state's top E Scow finisher

With the top two places secure and those sailboats road-ready on their trailers, the remainder of the fleet in the 2007 E Scow National Championship regatta took to the waters of Charleston Harbor on Sunday for a chance to improve their overall standings in the event's final race.

The anticipated "battle of the Wills" occurred, with Will Demand of Toms River, N.J., benefiting from his third-place finish in Race 6 to move up three places to fourth overall, just behind Lexington's Robby Wilkins, who held on to third place, just two points ahead of Demand.

Charleston's Will Hanckel finished in a points tie with Demand, but Demand took fourth place on the tiebreaker system. Behind them in sixth was Will Graves.

Sam Rogers of Zenda, Wis., clinched the national championship Saturday, and Augie Barkow sewed up second place, so neither sailed in Sunday's race, using it as their discard score.

Rogers won all three Saturday races, recovering from a bad start in Race 5 to recover and win. He had been buried in the second row, tacked away to the starboard side of the course for clear air, "caught a big right shift and that was it," Rogers said.

In third place overall, Wilkins won the masters division (age 50 and over), and also had the youngest bowman, his son Reese, age 16. Wilkins' tactician was Charleston sailor and current Sunfish world champion David Loring, and local standout David O'Reilly completed Wilkins' crew.

"I was 50th at the nationals in Lake Minnetonka (Minn.) last year," Wilkins said. He bought a 2007 model Melges and "focused on matching speed with those great Midwestern E Scow sailors who beat us so badly at last year's nationals.

"But the best thing about this regatta was that the out-of-towners all had a great time regardless of how they finished in the standings," Wilkins said.

Charleston's Crayton Walters, an E Scow sailor who led the effort to bring the E Scow nationals to this area, was pleased with how the regatta played out. "I'm glad things went well," he said at the end of Sunday's race.

E Scow Nationals, final results (one discard):

1. Sam Rogers 5-4-1-1-1-(51 DNS)—12

2. Augie Barkow 7-2-5-6-2-(51 DNS)—22

3. Robby Wilkins 13-5-(15)-3-5-8—34

4. Will Demand 3-(22)-6-9-15-3—36

5. Will Hanckel (23)-6-4-8-6-12—36

6. Will Graves 17-1-2-2-(26)-15—37

7. Richard Ryon 11-3-3-(17)-14-9—40

8. Lon Schoor 9-13-(18)-7-10-2—41

9. Tom Burton 4-16-(22)-4-12-5—41

10. Paul Magno 1-17-10-(21)-18-1—47

Other South Carolina sailors:

18. Ross Griffith 2-15-23-20-(38)-13—73

21. Will Van Cleef (25)-9-21-16-25-17—88

25. Walter Prause 24-(29)-26-23-7-24—104

26. Will Martin (32)-23-31-18-11-26—109

30. Mark Jordan (44)-39-39-33-4-30—145

40. Tom Hall 41-40-30-41-(51 DNF)-36—188

42. Nicholas Ellyn 35-47-38-43-(51 DNS)-33—206

43. Dan Perrin 38-46-40-49-(51 DNS)-33—206

50. Ben Leigh 50-50-49-50-(51 DNF)-51 DNF—250