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Pinedale, Wyoming, is better known as a gateway to the Wind River Mountains than as a destination for sailors. But since 1969, it’s been home to a two-day regatta attracting landlocked racers from across the West.
Jackson resident Mark Kemper, 32, started racing the Fremont Lake Sailing Regatta six years ago after buying a boat through a radio advertisement for $500. His girlfriend, Emily Coleman, crews alongside him with two friends.
“I had never been on a sailboat or met a sailor in my entire life before I moved to the most landlocked state ever,” Coleman said.
Pinedale resident Jason Essington has organized the event for the past 25 years.
“If you can sail on Fremont Lake in Wyoming, you can literally sail anywhere in the world,” Essington said.
Winds on the 12-mile-long lake are notoriously fickle, often shifting direction without warning. Formed by glaciers, it’s one of the deepest lakes in the country, stretching from sagebrush hills on its western edge to forested and rugged peaks in the east.
Essington described it as a “day sailor’s” race.
“It’s for people that get together once a year, just to sail in circles, mostly tell sailing lies about what they’ve done for the last year,” he said.
There’s no prize money, but the winner gets bragging rights and a gold flag to adorn the boat’s halyard. The loser gets a bottle of champagne. Kemper earned that trophy in his first race.
“If you’re not going to get first, you might as well get last, because then you can drink,” Kemper said.
Originally called The Little America Cup, the Fremont Lake regatta once drew legal scrutiny from the much more famous America’s Cup. That international race features multimillion-dollar boats, with teams spending up to $300 million.
“They’ve been going up and down the East and West Coast, nailing all these big-money yacht clubs,” Essignton said. “I’m, like, dude, we’re a club that doesn’t even really exist. This was sponsored by Earl Holding of Holding’s Little America. And Earl’s dead.”
Essington noted the Fremont Lake race predated its ritzy copyright-wary cousin.
“The legal secretary was like, ‘Oh my god, I just called the wrong redneck,’” Essington said.
Although the nearby mountain range is known as the Winds, the first day of regatta weekend presents knot zero. Essington pushed back the start time by two hours to give time for the zephyrs to stir.
Tom Haigh, known to friends as “Crazy Tom,” keeps spirits up as the unofficial and self-appointed emcee. He broadcasts from a motorboat rigged with speakers and a microphone.
“I played some wind songs. I played Cat Stevens, ‘The Wind.’ I think that helped,” Haigh said.
He’s also a competitor, sailing in what can be described as a bathtub.
“It’s going to be very exciting. I’m wearing a helmet. It’s gonna be great,” Haigh said before the start.
Even in light winds, sailors stayed alert all weekend.
“It could always go from fun, manageable to chaos and just survive, get back to the marina for safety,” Kemper said.
That edge gives the regatta its cowboy flair.
“Everyone in Pinedale, they don’t mess around. Like they’ll race through basically anything,” Kemper said.
One can’t simply watch the race to see who’s in first. Official regatta rules assign a different handicap to each boat, depending on capacity for speed. The Capriola’s design was the fastest in the regatta.
“If you’re just a layman out here watching us, we look like we’re winning. Which is what I think is the most important,” Coleman joked.
The couple’s training paid off. After two winters restoring a boat and then sailing in the Caribbean, they tied for second after day one and pulled into the lead on day two.
Six years after claiming the loser’s brut, they had to buy their own celebratory spray.
“I had no idea we were gonna, like, win the regatta until it happened,” Coleman said. “It’s cool to see that when you practice something, you actually get better at it.”
