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2006 CHARLESTON RACE WEEK : RAYMARINE, RACER OF THE DAY : ERIC ANDREWS, MELGES 24

Eric Andrews, Co-owner of M24, Sick Puppy

08 APRIL 2006 • A resident of Cookeville, Tennessee, Eric Andrews has been traveling to Charleston to race sailboats for almost six years, which is about as long as he’s owned a Melges 24 with his partner Steve Jones. This duo, along with Jones’ father Ralph, regularly hitch their regatta van up to the Melges—Sick Puppy—and trailer it all over the Southeast.

“We love coming to Charleston,” said Andrews, amid the boisterous, post-race crowd in full celebration at the Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina on Friday night. “Number one, it’s a great venue for racing. And number two, we feel so welcome here. Everyone we run into, from the bartender at the Blind Tiger Pub downtown to the people at our hotel just treat us so well. We tell them we’re sailors from out of town, and they just love it.”

Andrews, who handles the foredeck on board Sick Puppy, said that this is the third time his crew has attended Charleston Race Week. “For us, it’s an eight-hour drive to get here, so it’s really no big deal. We actually make the trip a couple of times a year for various events.”

We asked Andrews, a building contractor, about his luck on the race course today. “Well, it was tough. For one thing, you come to Charleston expecting to get mystified by the current, but that really wasn’t much of a factor today. Actually, it was the wind that was really tricky. That’s why you saw all those knockdowns and goofy things happening. The wind wasn’t that strong, but it was really squirrelly, particularly near the top of the course.” Sick Puppy took a third first race, for which Andrews credited the team’s ability to get out to the favored left hand side of the course early. Their scores in the following two races weren’t as stellar: 7 and 12. After three races, they’re in sixth place among the 18 Melges 24s.

The real question of the evening for Andrews was this: Do you prefer Gosling’s Black Seal Rum, or the Gold Rum? “Gosling’s Gold is great for mixing with soda and juice, that sort of thing, but the Black Seal Rum, that’s the only way to go for a dark and stormy.” Nice answer.

So what’s next for the Sick Puppy crew? They’ll head back to Tennessee, but will be back in Charleston later this summer for the Charleston Harbor Challenge.