J/121 ALCHEMY Takes the Silver!(Hyannisport, MA)- On Saturday morning, the 500+ sailors on the 180 boats participating in the 2018 edition of the FIGAWI Race were greeted by a solid 15-20 southwest breeze, making for a mostly starboard close reach/ fetch from Hyannis, MA on Cape Cod down to Nantucket Harbor. The smaller boats did the “straight shot” course of 23nm and the big boats did the “long course” around enough buoys to make it 30+nm and included beats and reaching under spinnakers. As has been tradition, a fair number of J/Teams collected some silverware in the famously huge prize-giving gala presentation on Sunday that seemingly takes all afternoon!
The largest fleet of “J’s” were sailing PHRF Division S1; eight of the ten boats were J/Crews! Loving the conditions was the newly launched J/121 ALCHEMY sailed by David Southwell; their team took 2nd place behind a TP52. Here’s what David had to say about their experience:
“The
Figawi race from Hyannis to Nantucket was ALCHEMY’s first race to
prepare for the Newport-Bermuda race, in fog and 15-20 knots of wind
from the southwest. Normally this would favor heavier boats, but
ALCHEMY tracked beautifully both upwind for most of the race, and on the
downwind leg using our A2/A4. We took advantage of the rating benefit
of not using the water ballast, and she handled well with eight crew.
After a good start using the pursuit format of Figawi, we kept
overtaking the boats that had started before us, and finished second in
class, out of 11. ALCHEMY is almost dialed-in for Bermuda now, and we
look forward to racing against our sisterships in two weeks!”ALCHEMY finished just 2:05 behind the TP52. Taking third was Mark Verville’s J/120 ISURUS another 3:18 behind the J/121. Fifth was Jimmy Masiero’s J/122 URSUS MARITIMUS another 4:20 behind them.
The PHRF S2 Division was essentially a J/105 one-design class with three other boats mixed in for good measure. Not surprisingly, the J/105s swept the top five! Winning was Andrew Reservitz’s DARK’N’STORMY, second Mary Schmitt’s HARDTACK, third Ed Lobo’s WATERWOLF, fourth Joe Lloyd’s Nantucket High School Sailing Team on PRIMA, and fifth was Francis Dougherty’s LYRIC.
In PHRF B Division, Kirk Brown’s J/40 JAZZ finished in fifth. In PHRF C Division, Ira Perry’s J/29 SEEFEST got the bronze. Finally, in PHRF G Division, Bill Jones’ J/40 SMITTEN took a bronze, as well. For more Figawi Race sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.
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