J/105 POWER PLAY Gets Hat Trick(Block Island, RI- June 22-26) - A single race today decided the fate of 153 boats entered in the Storm Trysail Club's Block Island Race Week XXIII presented by Rolex. The event, which began Monday, hosted 1500 sailors on the tiny land mass of Block Island, which for five days in every odd-numbered year becomes the epicenter for sailing in New England. Of the seventeen victors named in as many classes today, three were new leaders since Thursday, illustrating best how the tough got going when the going got tough. The event had several large one-design classes for the J's, including the J/105s, J/29, J/44s, J/122s and J/109s. In addition there was also a strong contingent of J's in the PHRF handicap classes.
In the biggest class at BIRW, the J/105 one-designs, Bruce Stone and Scott DeWeese (San Francisco, Calif.) drove POWER PLAY to overall victory with a third Friday in a photo-finish with second-place SAVASANA, skippered by Brian Keane (Weston, Mass.). Stone said his biggest drama this week, however, was that his team sailed Saturday and Sunday in San Francisco and still made it here for Monday's start. "We traveled by plane, taxi and sportsfishing boat to get to our borrowed boat here with seconds to spare." Stone, originally from Providence, R.I., says he loves Block Island Race Week, where the race management is superb and the venue is beautiful. "Ours was a tough class," he added. Behind POWER PLAY and SAVASANA was Joerg Esdorn and Duncan Hennes from Katonah, NY racing KINCSEM.
Continuing their winning ways over the past few years, John and Tony Esposito from Mohegan Lake, NY dashed off six firsts to dominate the J/29 class sailing their venerable HUSTLER. Running in second were Bijan Rasadi from Groton, CT sailing SHOWDOWN. Only one point back was MIGHT PUFFIN raced by Steve Thurston from Bristol, RI.
In the J/44 One-Design class, six boats competed
with their one-design class sails, making for very close racing. The final tally went down to the wire for the two leaders, Jeff Willis's CHALLENGE IV from Huntington, NY and Jim Bishop's renowned GOLD DIGGER from New York, NY. Both boats ended up tied with sixteen points a piece at the end of Friday's racing with CHALLENGE IV ultimately prevailing on having more first place finishes. Don and Rick Rave on RESOLUTE from Huntington Bay, NY sailed well, improved all week and ultimately won two races to finish third overall.In the PHRF handicap divisions, the Storck family Huntington, NY again led their nine boat PHRF 3 Class to victory sailing their J/80 RUMOR. In PHRF 4, Kyle Fast from Noank , CT sailed his J/24 ALOHOMORA to second overall.
Several special awards were given to various J sailors. For best overall performance on their respective race circles, the skippers of the J/29 HUSTLER (winner of PHRF 2 class, skippered by John & Tony Esposito, Mohegan Lake, N.Y.) and POWER PLAY each received a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner timepiece. The Everett B. Morris Memorial Trophy for Best Overall Performance went to POWER PLAY (making it the third part of their hat trick!). In addition to the J/105 Class Trophy, POWER PLAY also picked up the Justin Wasley Memorial Trophy for the overall winner of the one-design class with the largest number of entries.