September 2022

I am sailing with a friend in the Shields Nationals (hosted by Ida Lewis Yacht Club and Shields Fleet 9 in Newport, Rhode Island September 6 – 10); thus the lovely cover shot. It is being sailed the first full week in September in Newport. It is not particularly convenient for my family. It is the first week of school for our 9th grader. Fall baseball practices will undoubtedly be called while I am away, and other…

Our friends at the Connecticut Marine Trades Association are thrilled to announce the appointment of Jen Kawecki to the position of Managing Director. Kawecki began with the CMTA in May 2021 as office assistant. A lifelong boater and mother of six, she’s returning to her roots after taking time off to raise her family. Kawecki spent ten years in corporate retail, most recently in Human Resources Leadership at a major department store operator before stepping away. Jen…

The ISPCRY (International Society for the Perpetuation of Cruelty to Racing Yachtsmen, aka the “Moosehead Committee”) is an organization dedicated to calling attention – in a good-natured way – to the foibles and fumbles of various race committees. For the uninitiated, the perpetrators of the most significant race management moose-demeanors receive real stuffed mooseheads for their troubles. Other less egregious instances are rewarded with mounted body parts of other animals. The ISPCRY also awards citations to those race committees and other…

By Tom McKeon   Twenty-nine years is arguably a milestone for any event. This is exactly what will take place October 1, 2022 when the Peconic Bay Sailing Association’s Whitebread 29 race committee’s horn sounds! Like any great event, the Whitebread had humble beginnings. Twenty-nine years ago, after a weekly Wednesday night summer race around Robins Island, a small group of New Suffolk sailors gathered at the Galley Ho restaurant and decided (after a few cocktails, from…

Sarah Anker, a current Suffolk County legislator who lives in Mt. Sinai, NY, has published a children’s picture book on ocean pollution entitled Below the Ocean: Keeping Our Sea Friends Safe. The book targets young children ages 2- 10 years and provides an engaging story about a young seal and her encounters with ocean pollution. “Having raised three children and knowing how important it is to teach our kids about respecting and maintaining our environment, I decided…

Ike Schutz (age 15) and Avery Peterson (14), from Sachem’s Head Yacht Club in Guilford, CT, recently returned from an amazing experience at the 2022 RS Feva World Championship, held in July at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy in England, the site of the 2012 Olympic Regatta. Ike and Avery were the only sailors from the USA at this event. In the summer of 2021, they won the RS Feva North American Championship at Cedar…

By Nick Bowen   The Twenty Hundred Club had their third race of the season on Saturday, July 23. This was also their first of two destination races. The “Cuttyhunk Race” starts just south of Rose Island near the “G3” buoy, takes the sailors about four nautical miles south to buoy “R2” at Brenton Reef. This mark is about two nm south of Castle Hill where the boats turn east for a 19.5 nm run across Rhode…

In the spring of 2021, we embarked on a four-episode podcast tracing the development of the International Six Metre Class. The hubs of that furious design and competitive scene were Seawanhaka Corinthian and Larchmont Yacht Clubs in New York. The sailing characters included Briggs Cunningham, Herman Whiton, and many future 12 Metre skippers. We still get podcast listener comments today on those episodes; Sixes stories abound. The drama of the competition played out between designers young and…

By David Schwartz The Narragansett Bay Yachting Association held its annual ‘Round The Bay race on Saturday, July 30. NBYA worked with The Nature Conservancy, a global conservation organization dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends. Working in this state for fifty years, The Nature Conservancy has helped to conserve 35,000 acres of land in Rhode Island and to protect the quality of the waters we sail in. The seventeen boats racing…

The Mixed Offshore Doublehanded European Championship By Barbara “Basia” A. Karpinska Between the pandemic and tough competition for new Olympic sports, we now know that the efforts pioneering Mixed Offshore Doublehanded as a new discipline in Olympic Sailing will need to continue beyond the Games in Paris 2024. Initiated in 2019 in a one-design boat called the L30 (developed by Rodion Luka and designed by Andrej Justin), over the course of the last three years the event…