AYC Young American J/105 Wins, Again!
(Larchmont, NY)- This year’s 62nd annual Edlu Distance Race, a quick 32nm race from Larchmont breakwater to Eaton’s Neck and back was a bit more of a classic tune-up race than most people expected. Saturday morning dawned, grey, cold, and quite breezy- in fact, blowing up to 30+ kts. As a result, there was a bit of carnage on the race course with broaching, torn sails, ripped chutes and bruised egos. For those that finished the race (about 25% of the fleet DNF’d), it was an epic race to tell tall tales at the LYC party afterwards.
The
big winners of the event were, once again, the incredibly talented
young sailors from American YC’s Offshore Youth program. Their J/105
YOUNG AMERICAN won the Edlu Trophy, emblematic of the overall winner and
the Wilfred Kluss Trophy for winning PHRF 2 class. Behind them in
second place was another strong J/105 team, Duncan Hennes with Za &
Lib Jelliffe on ARETE. Taking 4th in class was another J/105, Hobie
Ponting’s PRIVATEER YCC. In PHRF 1 class, Bill Ingraham’s J/124 TENEBRAE took 4th in the rough conditions while Cory Eaves’ J/109 FREEDOM was 5th and Greg Slamowitz’s J/111 MANITOU was 7th place.
The
five-boat J/88 class became a walk-away for Iris Vogel’s DEVIATION YCC
team, as they were the only boat that finished the race! Needless to
say, it was a very rough race for smaller boats, plus quite cold.The PHRF Doublehanded division, one of the largest in the race with ten boats, was dominated by top-performing J crews taking 4 of the top 6 slots. Top boat was Peter Hein’s J/120 VAREKAI, taking 2nd. They were followed by Randy Saunders’ J/100 JACKAL in 3rd, Todd Aven’s J/92 THIN MAN in 4th, Abhijeet Lele’s J/111 VARUNA in 6th.
Finally, the IRC Division saw Len Sitar’s J/44 VAMP from Storm Trysail Club finish in fourth place. Sailing photo credits- Howie McMichael/ McMichaels Yachts. For more Edlu Distance Race sailing information