2024 Luders 16 International Championship

The forty-sixth Annual L-16 Class Championship Regatta will be sailed in a six to ten race series on The Great Harbor, Thursday and Friday, July 25th and 26th. Crews from Mount Desert Island and elsewhere will compete for the International Championship.

This event was first held on August 13th-14th, 1947 out of Bar Harbor Yacht Club and continued annually until it was last held out of Chicago Yacht Club on August 12th-14th, 2005. The winner of the inaugural event in 1947 was Samuel M. Clark of Chicago Yacht and the last winner in 2005 was John R. Lee of Southern Yacht Club (a full list of former winners can be found here).

In 2004, Hurricane Katrina decimated Southern Yacht Club’s L-16 Fleet (which was one of the largest, if not the largest, in the country at the time). The Luders 16 International Championship continued one final time a year later at Chicago Yacht Club but after that the Class was unable to continue hosting the event.

Over the past two decades, the MDI Luders Class has grown steadily to over 30+ boats based locally, some of which were salvaged from New Orleans, LA and Pass Christian, MS after Hurricane Katrina. Of those 30+ local L-16s, about ten to fifteen of them consistently race throughout the summer on the waters surrounding MDI.

Nineteen years after the last Luders 16 International Championship was held in Chicago, The Northeast Harbor Fleet has made the decision to bring this event back with hopes of returning it to its former glory and plans to continue hosting it annually for years to come (unless the class grows so large that we must start rotating venues). We look forward to seeing who will take home the inaugural Jim Fernald Memorial Trophy as the first Luders 16 International Champions in nearly two decades.

• The Notice of Race for the 2024 Luders 16 International Championship is attached below. This year's NOR was put together in an old school format to replicate the NOR of the inaugural 1947 event held out of Bar Harbor. The original 1947 NOR can be found here: pg. 1 / pg. 2.

• 1947 Correspondence Between James G. Ducey and Samuel M. Clarke: February 23rd / March 12th / May 23rd / July 14th / July 26th.

• 1947 Luders International Championship Handwritten Results: pg. 1 / pg. 2.

Nicholas H. Johnstone

Fleet Manager

The Northeast Harbor Fleet

nehfgeneralmanager@gmail.com