J/Teams Lovin’ Rolex New York YC Regatta

(Newport, RI)- The 161st New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta presented by Rolex meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and when the three-day event concluded after a day of around-the-island racing (Friday, June 12) and a weekend of around-the-marks competition (June 13-14), there was plenty of satisfaction to be had.

For Event Chair David Bush-Brown, there was satisfaction that the Annual Regatta, robust-as-ever with 169 entries, had successfully upheld its keen sense of tradition, which for well over a century and a half has kept the New York Yacht Club at the forefront of sailing. “A lot of changes have happened to our sport and the regatta over 161 years,” said Bush-Brown, “but one thing remains the same: spirit of competition and camaraderie.”

That spirit was evident on Saturday night when the New York Yacht Club hosted over 1,000 sailors for cocktails and dinner on the expansive grounds of its waterfront Harbour Court clubhouse. It was also evident during Sunday’s two-hour postponement ashore when the Newport Shipyard, where many of the boats were docked, felt less like a paddock area for preparation and more like a venue for a class reunion, with long-time friends as well as newly-established acquaintances swapping war stories and discussing what lies next on the sailing horizon.

The largest offshore one-design fleet ever assembled in New York YC Annual Regatta history was the J/111 class of nineteen boats.  Sunday’s sailing, when it got going by mid-afternoon in an easterly of 10-14 knots, delivered even more color than Friday’s and Saturday’s held in relatively lighter air, and when all was said and done, winners in 19 classes were the most satisfied of all that they had shined on the stages of Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound for a rotating mix of stadium-style, drop-mark and navigators-course competition.

In particular, J/111 winner George Gamble (Pensacola, Fla.), steering MY SHARONA, hoped he saw his future for the J/111 World Championship scheduled for next week in the same waters. “We raced against 19 J/111s this weekend and will compete against 25 in the J/111 Worlds, so the New York YC Annual Regatta was a great event for the team,” said Gamble. “It allowed for us to practice against a majority of the same players and get us better acquainted with the local conditions. The competition was off the charts, and there wasn’t one boat that won a race more than once all weekend.”

Gamble said his team’s victory came down to a tiebreaker with Bob Hesse’s LAKE EFFECT, “We both had a first, a second, a fifth and a sixth at the end of the regatta, so we had the exact same scores. The tiebreaker was who did better in the last race, which was us. Winning this regatta keeps team momentum going, which is really important, and we have a better feel for our speed and how we are against the other boats in different conditions, which is huge.”  Third behind them was the Chicago J/111 team on KASHMIR skippered by Mike Mayer and Steve Henderson.

In the IRC 3 class, Paul Milo’s ORION (from NYYC and Leesburg, VA) took 2nd overall and Mike Bruno’s WINGS (a past NYYC winner from American YC in Rye, NY) finished 4th overall. Jim Bishop’s modified J/44 WHITE GOLD took 6th in IRC 2 class.

The IRC 4 class featured many leading 35 footers from the J drawing board. Winning the class over CARINA (New York YC Commodore Rives Potts’ famous 48 footer) was the incredibly competitive Bill Sweeter and his “take-no-prisoners” crew aboard the famous J/109 RUSH.  Flying up the learning curve in the J/109s is Carl Olsson’s crew aboard MORNING GLORY.  As a top J/105 team, they have adapted quickly the J/109 and after taking 3rd overall in IRC 4 Class, they and the RUSH team are looking forward to their J/109 North Americans being held at Storm Trysail Club’s 50th Block Island Race Week.  Behind this duo, the J/35 LEADING EDGE sailed by Tom Sutton from Houston, TX finished 6th overall.

In the PHRF Spinnaker Divisions, the J/Teams swept the top positions.  In PHRF 1, Kenn Fischburg’s J/111 WILD CHILD took three bullets to win their class in convincing fashion.  In PHRF 2, the three top J/105s took the top spots with Fred Darlington’s TONTO in 1st, Don Santa’s SANTAS REIGN DEAR in 2nd and Mark & Jolene Masur’s TWO FEATHERS in 4th. In PHRF 3 Non-spinnaker, the J/160 TRUE sailed by Howie Hodgson placed 4th in class.

The classic first day of the NYYC Annual Regatta is always the Round Island Race, a 20nm circumnavigation of Conanicut Island, sailing around beautiful Narragansett Bay, underneath the two huge bridges (Jamestown and Newport) and passing by numerous islands that always pose a navigational/ tactical challenge for the fleet (Dutch Harbor Island, Gould Island, Halfway Rock, Rose Island).  The numerous J/Teams that participated walked off with more than their fair share of trophies.  Because the light northerly died in the morning, the NYYC PRO wisely sent the fleet up north into the Bay with the building seabreeze and the flood tide to get the race going.  Downwind starts are always challenging and many boats chose to split around Gould Island as they headed north to the first turning mark, the red gong off the NE corner of Conanicut Is.  From there, the long beat back down the Bay on the west side of Conanicut Is. and the mainland shore was a tactical nightmare for many.  The smart money played one or two shifts underneath the island before streaking across to the west side of West Passage before the Jamestown Bridge.  From there, the light, variable seabreeze had little punch to it and, again, the smart choice was to avoid the flood current on the nose and duck inside Dutch Harbor to then short-tack the beat to the shortened course finish at Beavertail Bell off the southern end of Conanicut Is.

In the IRC 3 class, the J/122 WINGS sailed by Mike Bruno won their division again. In IRC 4 Class, Tom Sutton’s J/35 LEADING EDGE placed first while Bill Sweetser’s J/109 RUSH took 4th and Brook Mastrorio’s J/109 URSA finished 6th.  In the tough J/111 class, Kenn Fischburg’s team (at right here) of family sailors aboard WILD CHILD “schooled” their fellow J/111 teams on how to sail the Round Island Race, finishing 8th boat-for-boat in the entire fleet of 135 boats.  Taking second was Bill Smith’s crew on WOOTON from Chicago, IL and in third was George Gamble’s MY SHARONA from Pensacola, FL.

In the PHRF Classes, the J/120 SUNSET CHILD sailed by Marcus Cholerton-Brown placed 3rd in PHRF 1.  Then, in PHRF 2, it must have seemed it was a J/Armada that had taken over as four of the top six teams were J/Crews.  In second was Dawson Hodgson’s J/100 GRIMACE, followed by EC Helme’s J/92S SPIRIT in 3rd, Brian Kiley’s J/29 MEDDLER X in 4th and Mark & Jolene Masur’s J/105 TWO FEATHERS in 6th.  For more Rolex New York YC Annual Regatta sailing information