4th of July Series- IODs

It certainly was an interesting day of sailing with the wind changing direction constantly. The tide was flooding and then ebbing. Spinnakers were flown on upwind legs. The breeze went from a drifter to 15 knots and we had 14 boats full of competitors out for the first day of racing in the 99th season of the Northeast Harbor Fleet.

 

Our first race was held under overcast skies and a freshening westerly breeze which was suddenly interrupted by a cool southerly from Cranberry. The southwesterly took over as the fleet approached the Manset shoreline but the leaders sailed into the great vacuum as they tried to get to the nun off Greening Island. A puff filled from astern and every boat turned the mark overlapped together. There was some salty language exchanged but mostly a bit of love rubbing between the boats. The breeze freshened back up along the Manset shore and everyone compressed at the finish line with all boats finishing within 20 seconds of each other. Caribou sailed by David Rockefeller snuck across first with Charlotta and Court Jenkins in Eagle right on their heels.

 

Round 2 was another race towards Manset but the breeze cranked 100 degrees to the left and everyone was called back for a re-start at Spurling Ledge. The Fleet split on a journey out to Seawall with many boats working along the Cranberry shore while others turned to the right and went in search of a warm land breeze from Manset. The current was fairly slack at this time. Freyja sailed by Commodore Mia Thompson was leading as the warm breeze side paid off and she was chased by Sean Smith in Puff and Live Yankee sailed by reigning world champion Tom Fremont-Smith. That was a quick one lap race and everyone scrambled to start a third race with a building westerly breeze at 15 knots.

 

The third round was a dinghy race with all of the boats very tightly packed in a short sprint towards mark D located midway out of the Western Way along the Manset shore. The Commodore took control and led through the first three turns. The RC lengthened the last two legs as the wind had finally filled all the way across the Great Harbor and the big thunderstorm boomers were heading slightly to our north. Freyja took their second win of the Series but many are looking forward to the final race which will be a marathon race for the Henry Reath Trophy on Monday. The fourth race of the series will start at Gilpatrick Ledge and go either clockwise or counterclockwise around the Cranberry Islands.

 

Stay tuned for more exciting action.

All competitors are requested to log in to clubspot and sign yourselves up for the July Series as well as the 4th. If you're sailing on Monday, please additionally sign up for the MDI Series as that is also a cruising class race. This program will allow you to add your amazing crew's names so they recieve scores and their names will also be published in the paper. Please get everyone on board included in this vital upgrade to our fleet record keeping, too.

 

The Reath Trophy will start from Gilpatrick Ledge with the slowest boat (probably a Luders) at 1330. Everyone is welcome to join all our youth sailors as well for a picnic starting at 1115 on Monday, egg toss and pie eating contest! For those with moorings afar, we have moorings unoccupied so please sail over and jump on an open mooring while attending the picnic. It will make it much less stressful to start the Henry Reath Trophy. 

 

Many thanks to Rick Echard on Shearwater today and Charlotta and Court Jenkins hosting a wonderful post-race reception.