(Greenwich, CT)- Get the bit in her teeth and she'll still show her
transom to a lot of boats blasting down the race track. That's the
story of the J/120s sailing in Indian Harbor YC's fall classic called,
appropriately, the Gear Buster Race. Why the name? Basically, because
it's the last offshore race of the fall season, so gotta for broke-- as
they say in San Francisco, "Go Big or Go Home"! Plus, it almost always
nukes in the fall on Long Island Sound when the fast-moving cold fronts
go ripping through the Northeastern coast of America and it blows for
days at a time 15-30 kts (or more) out of the Northwest.Reveling in this year's conditions, the J/120s won both PHRF Doublehanded Division and PHRF Spinnaker Division. In the Double group, it was Gardner Grant on ALIBI that took home the Gold not only in class, but won PHRF Overall! Other J's that had a respectable showing in the same division were Hewitt Gaynor's J/120 MIREILLE in 5th and Greg Imbruce's J/109 JOYRIDE in sixth.
In the PHRF Spinnaker Division, Barry John's J/120 NO ESCAPE took home the bacon (and the pickle dish) in a big, big way, winning by over one hour forty minutes on corrected and securing 3rd in PHRF Fleet Overall, too! A gaggle of other J/120s sailed well, with Joe Healey's SOULMATE finishing 3rd and Brian Spears' MADISON getting 4th. Just behind them was John Pearson's J/109 BLUE SKY in 5th.
Finishing 2nd in the PHRF Non-spinnaker division was Ken Hall's beautiful J/100 NEVERMORE, just missing out winning his class by only 40 seconds! You can just hear Ken asking himself, "now, why didn't I wing out that jib faster?" Next time, we hope.
John Towers pretty J/37 RIPPLE sailed a challenging race to beat out an old Maxi World Champion aboard BOOMERANG, Jeff Neuberth and friends on the Farr 11s STRAY DOG. However, they were no match for the fast Santa Cruz 52 MAGIC, with RIPPLE having to settle for 2nd overall in IRC Division. For more Indian Harbor YC Gear Buster sailing results
