MORNING GLORY Shines in Seaflower Reef Course(Stamford, CT)- For the classic 238nm Vineyard Race sailed over America's Labor Day holiday weekend, it would go down as one of the fastest on record. A crazy one it was, too. For many boats, spinnaker reaching out of Long Island Sound headed east, then turning around their respective marks, only to reset spinnakers in the early morning hours to fly home yet again on a spinnaker reach heading west to the finish line off Stamford!
Leading
the charge home for the champion J/Teams was Andrew Weiss' family team
aboard the J/122 CHRISTOPHER DRAGON, taking both IRC 40 Class honors and
Overall IRC Handicap honors against a fleet festooned with gold-platers
and famous all-pro, all-carbon, all-whatever racing teams in the
northeastern offshore community. CHRIS DRAGON managed to again beat
several famous custom offshore racers like George David's 90 foot
RAMBLER, the Dickie's renowned Ker 43 PTARMIGAN, Brim's RP 60 RIMA 2 and
Towse's RP66 BLUE YANKEE-- it's the equivalent of winning a Formula I
race with your basic Mercedes AMG S600 saloon-- the J/122's comfort,
speed and family fun against a rogue's gallery of carbon/foam O.T.T.
expensive offshore sailing weapons. As a reward for their efforts, the
Weiss family again take home the "Vineyard Lightship Trophy" (Best
corrected time in the IRC classes).Over on the Seaflower Reef course, two other J/Teams were showing their mettle, taking home the silverware for both the Overall and Double-handed divisions. The "Jig Time Performance" Trophy (Best corrected time on the Seaflower Reef course in the doublehanded class) went to the J/105 MORNING GLORY sailed by Carl Olsson from Larchmont YC. And, the "Cotton Blossom Performance" Trophy (Best corrected time in the Seaflower Reef course) went to the J/92 RISK (Kevin Mackay- Riverside YC).
It
was a very fast race according to the J/105 crews. Three J/105s
competed in three different divisions in this weekend's Vineyard Race,
with Carl Olsson's Morning Glory finishing first in PHRF Division S 2
Double-handed; Dave Spence's Synergy finishing fourth in PHRF S 3; and
Marcus Wunderlich's Stratos getting second in PHRF 6. Morning Glory and
Synergy sailed on the A-Seaflower Reef Course while Stratos did the
Vineyard course. Wunderlich says the 240 NM Vineyard course was a blast.
"It was quite an epic journey with 15-20 knots of wind for most of the
time. Not only was the wind very good for a fast sail but it also
changed direction to keep us broad running. Of the 34 hours racing, we
had the kite up for all but 2 hours. Not one single tack and five gybes
from start to finish. We spent sometimes sailing between 10-12 knots for
minutes at a time. Missed victory by only a few minutes. Had I sailed
under IRC so would I have finished in third ahead of a bunch of J/109s."In the Vineyard Course IRC Double-handed, the J/35 PALADIN sailed by Jason Richter of Setauket YC was 2nd, the J/120 MIREILLE skippered by Hewitt Gaynor from Pequot YC in 3rd and the J/100 FLASHPOINT sailed by Adrian Little of Cedar Point YC in 4th.
For the IRC 35 class the J/109s took 3 of the top five. First was SKOOT (Jim Vos- Stamford YC), third was RHIANNON III (Curt Schibli- Stamford YC) and fifth was ARIEL (Jeff Warren- Pequot YC).
In the IRC 50 Class the J/145 SWEET LORRAINE sailed by Mike Nasen from Larchmont YC gave the custom IRC offshore racers a run for the money to finish a very respectable 2nd in class!
The PHRF 8 class had two J/120s sailing with Steve Levy's EAGLE garnering a 2nd with Bill Mack's M-SQUARED finishing 4th.
Finally, in the S3 Class the quartet of J's nearly cleaned house. The two J/92s finished 1-2 with RISK leading the way followed by Todd Aven's THIN MAN. Fourth was Dave Spence's J/105 SYNERGY and sixth was the J/33 SIRIUS (Mike Sullivan- Fayerweather YC). Sailing photos credits- Ken Delmar For more Stamford-Vineyard Race sailing information
