Racing

By Beth Fleisher and Celeste Flick, Regatta Co-Chairs     Southold Yacht Club in Southold, NY is hosting the 50th Annual World’s Longest Sunfish Race Around Shelter Island, NY on Saturday, July 10, 2021. This unique nautical marathon is open to single and doubles Sunfish sailors per the event NOR. As the crow flies, the nautical distance around Shelter Island, starting and finishing at Southold Yacht Club, is 21.3 miles. Since crows don’t tack, however, it is…

  Of course, my first doublehanded race of 2020 had to be sailed in 18-26 knots – trial by fire. It was a 20-mile race where the course was a 10-mile dead run followed by a 10-mile square beat. My 40-footer is usually raced by a crew of 10 or 11 people, but to respect the need for social distancing and in the absence of any other racing on the calendar, I created a five-weekend series of…

Block Island Race Week presented by Margaritaville is June 21-25   Despite the pandemic, Storm Trysail Club’s Block Island Race Week presented by Margaritaville is enjoying the build-up of tremendous enthusiasm. As of this writing, nearly 160 boats have signed up for this biennial classic to be held June 21-25, 2021. In an era where participation has been trending down for many events, that’s almost 20% more than came racing in 2019. “We see this growth as…

Our friends at Noroton Yacht Club in Darien, CT are hosting the inaugural Viper 640 Women’s North American Championship and the 2021 Viper 640 North American Championship on October 2 & 3 and 7 – 10, respectively. “The original plan was to hold a two-day Women’s International Championship, a two-day North American Championship, and a four-day World Championship this coming October,” Viper 640 Class Administrator Buttons Padin explained. “Because it appears likely that COVID restrictions will prevent…

  This April, Charleston Race Week will celebrate its 25th anniversary. The event will actually be a reprise because like so many regattas last year, the actual anniversary – Race Week 2020 – was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. With safety paramount in their planning, the organizers in Charleston, SC are forging ahead and making plans for a special edition of this annual sailing extravaganza, one befitting a silver anniversary. According to Randy Draftz, the longtime…

By Barbara “Basia” A. Karpinska   When the idea of a modern Olympics emerged towards the end of the 19th century, the organizers were looking for a good popularizing event to connect the spectators to the glory of ancient Greece. In honor of the run from Marathon to Athens, a “marathon race” was envisioned to be featured in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, an ultimate test of strength and endurance. The marathon quickly became an integral part of the…

It’s a long way from Fishers Island Sound to the Diamond Head Buoy off Honolulu, Hawaii. Four young women from Connecticut are getting ready to make the leap to compete in the 51st edition of the iconic Transpacific Yacht Race. By Lindsay Gimple   It felt impossibly far, the first time I pushed off from Stonington Harbor bound for Block Island. Sixteen nautical miles is a grand ocean-crossing voyage to a gaggle of teenagers on a J/24, provisioned…

Part I: Carleton Mitchell: John Muir of the Caribbean, Bermuda Race Legend By Tom Darling This is the tale of two boats: one famous, one not. For these two classic cousins, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That is how the career of classic boats can be. One boat, the rock star design of the 1950s, was the winner of three successive Bermuda Races, a feat never done before or after….

By Adam Wolnikowski, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Yale University/Trumbull ‘21 This year was the 43rd Annual Snow & Satisfaction Regatta run by the Yale University undergrads this year as a Zoom party. The “Snow” has been run as an invitation-only regatta by the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club in Branford, CT since 1976 and has been held every year since, except 2011 when it was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy. Each year, the Snow is organized by…

Patriot Will Fly Again After nearly losing Patriot beneath the waves following her capsize on the Hauraki Gulf in Auckland, New Zealand, New York Yacht Club American Magic, the U.S. Challenger for the 36th America’s Cup presented by Prada, is bringing the big blue AC75 back to life.     Following INEOS Team UK’s overall win in the Prada Cup Round Robins, American Magic is scheduled to face Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, the Challenger of Record, in the Prada Cup Semifinals, which…