PRELIMINARY RESULTS

The second day of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week was progressing like any other classic summer day off the coast of the iconic East Coast harbor, with nearly a half-dozen one-design fleets enjoying the afternoon’s final races. The morning’s brilliant sunshine had given way to towering thunderclouds that slid past to the south, and all was easy going.

Until it wasn’t.

Just as the regatta’s J/70s, Viper 640s and International 110s were sailing their final downwind legs, a surprising wall of wind unleashed its fury. While some teams savored the high-speed spinnaker run, many opted to keep their spinnakers on deck.

Other sailors were caught off guard with the ferocity of the fast-moving squall, including Joe Berkeley and his crewmate Linda Epstein, winners of the day’s first race in the International 110 fleet.

They were within striking distance of the race leader, and “licking our chops,” Berkeley says. With Epstein on the trapeze and trimming the spinnaker and Berkeley on the helm of the flat-bottomed one-design classic, they were relishing the high-speed run until they altered course to avoid a J/70 sailing upwind.

In a blink, they were on their side and taking on water.

“The boat rounded up and flipped really fast,” he says. Epstein ended up tangled in the mainsail but managed to release the vang to prevent the boat from sinking completely.

Although they avoided a total submersion, the boat was awash and required extensive bailing. “It was a moment of introspection,” Berkeley reflected candidly, accepting responsibility for the capsize. “I should’ve taken the kite down. I didn’t.”

Despite the setback, he remained grateful they hadn’t broken any equipment and was looking forward to returning for the next day’s racing.

Berkely and Epstein’s closest rivals, Steve Clark and his crewmate Bill Platt, had doused their spinnaker in time and let the worst of the squall pass. They were soon back to full sail and winning the race easily and lead the series.

In the chaos of the squall, while wildly exiting the windward mark offset in traffic, Bruce Golison’s crew on the J/70 Midlife Crisis, which won the first race of the day collided with another boat and retired from the race with both boats sustaining damage.

Peter Duncan’s J/70 team on Relative Obscurity was well ahead of the fray when the worst of it hit and was enjoying a blistering run until they had to drop the spinnaker in order to lay the mark. Obscurity crewmember Victor Diaz de Leon later reported that it was the fastest he’s ever gone in a J/70, with a 10-second or so sustained 21 knots. Dousing and two-sail reaching across the finish line gave them the race win and the series lead with a 1-point delta over Bruno Pasquinelli’s team on Stampede.

Henry Amthor and his teammates on the Viper 640 were seen whooping and laughing in the squall as they blitzed to their second race win of the day.

The regatta’s other fleets were already done racing and returning to harbor when the squall passed, and the team on Ted Hardenbergh’s Lightning, from Massabesic Yacht Club in Manchester, New Hampshire, were happy to miss it after an already high-stress day that has them leading their 8-boat fleet by only 1 point.

For them, it was a day of tactical comebacks and strategic adjustments that somehow worked out when they didn’t expect it to. In the first race, Hardenbergh found himself at the back of the fleet around the first mark after a bad start.

“The very first race, we were DFL to the first mark. We went hard left after the start,” Hardenbergh says. Despite the initial setback, his crew remained focused on the downwind leg. “We sailed deep on the first downwind leg and then jibed early. There was definitely more pressure coming downwind from the left,” he says. This one move allowed them to overtake nearly the entire fleet, ultimately securing a third-place finish.

For the second race, Hardenbergh adjusted his approach based in changing conditions. “We were a little late to the boat, and we tacked away quick and went off pretty hard to the right,” he says, explaining their tactical decision to sail up current while expecting a right shift in the breeze as the storm clouds approached. The strategy paid off with a second-place finish after race officials shortened the course at the leeward mark.

In the third race, Hardenbergh continued his right-side strategy, leading the fleet in that direction despite another late start. “The pressure seemed to be over there. It seemed to work out well,” he says. Despite challenges navigating around the Rhodes 19 fleet near the weather mark, his team secured another strong finish, capping off what he described as “a major, major improvement” over the previous year’s performance.

Brad Tindall, helming the Texas-based J/105 TnT (named for co-owners Greg Terman and Tindall), enjoyed a remarkable debut at Marblehead, securing multiple race victories. For Tindall, though not for all of his crew, this was a first-time experience at the Marblehead regatta.

“We had a great day, a really kick-ass start to the first race. We were launched out and just had great separation,” Tindall says. His team found themselves in perfect rhythm with the conditions, with boat balance and speed that allowed them to maintain an edge throughout the day.

The second race proved even more satisfying despite a challenging mid-fleet start. “The most gratifying race was the second one,” Tindall says. “We didn’t have such a great start, but we fought our way up.”

He says his crew demonstrated exceptional course awareness and tactical decision-making, consistently finding favorable wind shifts.

“Every time we tacked, we got lifted,” marveled his tactician Mark Foster, noting how unusual this consistent good fortune was. “It’s usually the other way around.”

Accustomed to the more predictable conditions of his home waters in Corpus Christi, Tindall found the day’s 60-degree wind shifts initially unnerving but ultimately manageable thanks to excellent crew coordination.

Their strong performance positions them well for the remainder of the regatta, 3 points ahead of Charlie Garrard’s Merlin, a local top team.

In the International One-Designs, which started the regatta on Thursday, Bill Widnall’s Javelin followed up its two race wins yesterday with a pair of thirds today. Carolyn Corbet’s Elektra was the top team for the day with a 1-2 to pull to within a point of Widnall’s Javelin.

The Rhodes 19 class also began its series on Thursday with a pair of races. The father-son duo of Nat and Jim Taylor have 1-2-7-1 on the scoreboard for a 6 point lead over Debbie Noble and Adam Roberts who finished the day with a 10th after an OCS restart had them battling back through the 23-boat fleet—no easy feat for sure.

Nick Cann and Andrea Dodge lead the Town Class fleet after four races and Ben Wilkinson’s team on the Etchells Freebird lead its class with a first and second on the day. Numerous general recalls delayed a third race attempt, and that race was ultimately abandoned before the squall arrived.

ILCA 6 and 7 sailors begin their series tomorrow, with racing scheduled through Sunday.

The post Spectacular to Squall Surprises, A Thrilling Day In Marblehead appeared first on Sailing World.

Online travel experts have it wrong when it comes to Marblehead. Predictable lists of “Things to Do” are the same old tourism flap: Saunter through historic homes and winding one-way streets, pop into a boutique. Get a cookie at the Muffin Shop. Take a walk out to Fort Sewall. Catch a sunrise at Chandler Hovey Park and Marblehead Lighthouse.

Of course, one could also book a fishing charter to catch some “striphahs,” get spooked in nearby Salem or sauced on pint-sized drinks at Maddie’s Sail Loft. And while those are all fine and good, there’s one glaring omission on the summer to-do list: “Watch the sailboat races and drink rum with the thirsty sailors of Marblehead Race Week, one of America’s longest running hometown regattas.”

Sailing and drinking are what local and visiting teams will be doing this week as the final stop of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week returns on Thursday, starting with the iconic and classy International One-Design keelboats and the spunky and classic Rhodes 19s.

Come Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the waters off the aforementioned Hovey Park will then be teaming with one-design classes of many shapes and sizes—from the diminutive Town Class classics to the sporty Viper 640s. From the little ILCAs to the big J/105s. And with the newer-school J/70s alongside the old-school International 110s, one thing’s for sure, Marblehead’s racing scene will be at its peak.

Boston Yacht Club, founded in 1866 and serving as the welcome mat on the town side of Marblehead Harbor, serves as proud host of this storied event. As per Race Week tradition, Boston’s neighbors over on the Neck—Eastern and Corinthian yacht clubs—share hosting in alternating years. All clubs collaborate on the running of races, but it’s Boston’s turn to host the post-race parties this year.

The Etchells Bump is Real

Launching from the hoists at Boston and other clubs each race day will be the regatta’s long and slim Etchells class sloops. Once left for dead in Marblehead, the class is enjoying a local resurgence, which local sailing Hall of Famer Jud Smith says has been a long time coming.

“The class has transformed,” Smith says, reflecting on the growing strength of the Etchells fleet at this regatta and in Marblehead itself. “Eight years ago, the class came to me and asked what can we do to save the class in Marblehead,” he says. “I said, ‘it’s going to be really easy: You have to host regattas and just do it on a consistent basis.’ One-design classes are all about regattas and people get excited about them, especially when they’re local, and they’re somewhat repeatable and get traction. Anybody who’s got a decent boat is going show up do this regatta.”

The resurrection of the Etchells class in Marblehead is largely attributed to the dedicated efforts of Tomas Hornos and a few passionate locals who have worked tirelessly to rejuvenate the fleet. Hornos, a champion sailor who works at Smith’s Doyle Sails loft in Salem, plays a pivotal role in this effort by securing older boats, many of which have lately come from the once-thriving fleet in Annapolis. Many of these boats are sent to Florida, where Ezra Culver and his team at EZ Marine work their magic, giving them a new lease on life before returning north.

Hornos’ dedication goes beyond merely getting older boats up to speed; he actively opens doors for new sailors to join the fleet by making the boats accessible. “We take active measures to ensure these boats remain in top condition,” Smith says, “which makes the class both approachable and enticing.”

For Smith, it’s also deeply personal. After his daughter Lindsey faced a long and challenging recovery from a traumatic life-threatening injury, Smith saw an opportunity to keep her Etchells sailing team Fast Mermaid on the racecourse by maintaining the boat for her and keeping it active in the fleet. “Instead of just letting the whole thing just die, I just thought it was the right thing to keep that whole program going,” he says, “with the idea that we’re going to get back and, you know, get back to full strength.”

International 110s Join the Party

Another return to the Race Week scene that Smith is excited to have is the International 110 class, which is now vibrant in Northeast and West Coast. “The 110 is a great boat with a lot of character,” he says, harking back to the days when he and his wife Cindy sailed one together before they were married. The boat holds a special place for Smith, not just for its nostalgic value, but because of its enduring appeal and affordability.

“I remember buying my 110 for $1,000. And if I was to fix it up and sell it today, I could still get a $1,000 for it,” says Smith, highlighting the boat’s lasting value and cult following. This affordability, combined with the boat’s vibrant and colorful aesthetics, makes it standout on the water. “It’s nice to see that they’ve got a good fleet down on the South Shore,” he notes, adding that this resurgence is a testament to its continued relevance and the passionate sailors who keep its legacy alive.

The Enduring Rhodes 19 the Race Week Regular

The Rhodes 19 class, always one of the largest at the regatta, remains a steadfast part of Marblehead’s vibrant sailing scene, admired for its enduring appeal and competitive racing. The class has enjoyed consistency in numbers at Race Week and remains attractive for young families and local sailors, drawn to its smaller scale and the close community it fosters. Despite the challenges of balancing family commitments with busy racing schedules, these sailors are particularly motivated as Race Week will serve as a key regatta for the upcoming Rhodes 19 Nationals in Marblehead.

The community aspect of Marblehead’s sailing scene is as significant as the competition itself. While Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series events are renowned for their unrivaled post-racing social experiences, the Marblehead stop of the series has a uniquely local flair with most fleets hosting house parties and lively socials on Thursday night. These gatherings foster connections between sailors of all ages and experience levels.

While there are old-timers and old-time perpetual trophies at Race Week, these days there’s an undeniable generational shift and that’s because of the accessibility of Marblehead Race Week in particular, Smith says. “The problem up here is access to the water,” he says. “The yacht clubs cooperate to help have these boats sailing, and that’s a good thing.”

Through boat donations, mentorship, and an emphasis on fleet-building, the regatta has managed to attract younger sailors and diverse teams, ensuring its vitality for years to come. And, unlike many other regattas, Marblehead Race Week thrives during the summer, making it a standout event on the sailing calendar. As Smith points out, Marblehead’s choice long ago to host this regatta in the heart of summer is unique.

“Most clubs like to have something else going on in the summer, or like to have the club available for their membership,” he says. But Race Week’s scheduling allows Marblehead to showcase not only its beautiful sailing conditions but also its vibrant community, its stunning coastal scenery, and most importantly its hospitality.

So, while tourists sticking to their Tripadvisor must-do list may be content with their cookies from the Muffin Shop and sunrise views from Marblehead Lighthouse, those in the know will be watching the spectacular sailing of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week and catching the sunset buzz at Boston YC.

The post Catching the Buzz at Marblehead Race Week appeared first on Sailing World.

• PRELIMINARY RESULTS
• PHOTO GALLERY

Marblehead Harbor was placid at first light. Pure sheen. Not a whiff of wind. And it remained that way as the Race Committees of Eastern, Boston and Corinthian YCs soldiered out to the open ocean with best intentions. The sailors followed. And wallowed until nothing came. Yet while the others drifted on the swirling currents of Marblehead Channel, race officials of the Archers Line made a calculated retreat to inner reaches of the Harbor where the Town class regularly sails.

The Lasers retreated as well, and while fleets from the offshore circles motored past en route to their moorings and hoists, a round green weather mark was placed 100 feet from Eastern YC’s launch dock. 

Soon, a dozen Lasers were slaloming through one of the most densely populated mooring fields on the East Coast, and then doing the same downwind, fighting for clean air between themselves, and swinging Grady Whites, Regulators and Sunday afternoon harbor strollers.

Yarmouth, Maine’s Jamie Carter won the race and the Laser series. And that was that.

The Townies were next, with nine competitors of the original 13-boat fleet piling up at the weather end with 20 seconds remaining. To leeward and forward of the group was the distressed black hull of Albatross, skippered by the wise ‘ol Rex Antrim from down in nearby Nahant.“We’re ahead in points,” Antrim says when interviewed before the race. “So far so good.”

The tips he shares for speed in the Town class are simple: “Don’t sail with any weather helm, if you can. And sail around the course faster than the other guy. Sail the shortest distance.”

His daughter Heidi is crewing with him today. “He’s had a different crew with him every day,” she says. “My mom, my daughter Callie, and then myself.”

Antrim has owned the boat since 1980, and his black beauty may be 90 years old, but for this edition of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week, he’s been the quickest of the fleet over three days of light winds and strong currents. After five races, he’s locked into a three-boat battle for this year’s Townie title, which is a big deal round these parts.

A one-shot windward/leeward race will decide the series, and Antrim is all alone near the pin end of the line at precisely 2 seconds before the start. He and Heidi trim their sails in unison and skirt past a big yellow Harbor Master buoy, duck a powerboat, and then speed off the left. 

Some of the fleet sail up the middle, tacking on shifts and obstructions. A few disappear to the right flank of the harbor. Somehow they’re soon on top of each other at the weather mark, calling room and then blanketing each other’s winds with their long footed mainsails.

Individual scrimmages weave through the moorings, and within a hundred yards of  the finish line, the top three converge in a bottle neck between powerboats. 

Antrim and skipper Nick Cann on Tonic are closing in on Bill Heffernen’s Sweep, ghosting up to him with a puff of their own. Twenty feet from the finish line, Heffernan hooks his mainsheet on a motorboat’s bow pulpit and his white boat comes to a brief halt. He breaks free quick enough to accelerate and win the race by a boat length.

Antrim and Cann are overlapped and then abeam of each other. Antrim is in the black boat to leeward. Cann is in the bright yellow boat to windward. Their jibs are poled out, their mainsails out to their stopper knots as the two of them see-saw places.But as they strike the line, Antrim gets the call and earns this year’s Town class championship by 3 points. A victory earned in the harbor, and another sidebar in the Town class annals: that time Rex Antrim won the lightest Race Week in a long, long time and proved once again that the really good ones are always faster in the light stuff.

With no results to change for the remaining fleet, the standings remained unchanged as the final regatta of the Regatta Series came to a close in Marblehead, but as is tradition at Race Week, there are perpetual trophies that come hard earned. First and foremost is the Cressy Trophy, presented annually to the “top performing skipper in the most competitive fleet at Marblehead Race Week.” That honor, presented by co-race chair Jud Smith, who with his wife Cindy, together held the reins of this edition, went to top ILCA finisher Jamie Carter, of Yarmouth, Maine. The young sailor emerged from a close series of five races with 8 points.

The Leonard Fowle Trophy, presented to “an individual who has made noteworthy contributions to sailing and racing in Marblehead, was presented to Smith, for his leadership of the regatta and working with his wife to modify and create new racecourses to add to the regatta’s traditional courses.
A new perpetual trophy added to the haul, the Widnall Trophy, which is presented to International One Design winner, was won by the man himself, putting up his 29th Race Week win in the class.

The final award of the night, the overall title, presented to an individual class winner drawn at random, went the way of the squad on the J/105 No Quarter, from nearby Beverly, Massachusetts. As a group of friends that have been racing with or against each other in different classes, together they’ve been quick to get up to speed, winning the regatta in what is now their second season with the boat.

They battled with perennial champ Merlin throughout the regatta and No Quarter co-owner Matt Herbster, says the win was bittersweet. “Merlin beat us on the water, but one bad spinnaker set did them in on Saturday. We wanted to go out and win today, but we were robbed of that [opportunity] because of the weather. “But we are happy to go back out with them and settle the score.”

On the boat with Herbster for Race Week and headed to the British Virgin Islands with Sunsail in October was Jonathan Dragonas, Julie Femino, Noah Flaherty, Ted Johnson and Chris Small. Small says their success over the weekend was “about keeping the boat rumbling, and working together with the trimmers to make sure we’re maintaining boatspeed and our lane.”

They’re confident they take their collective skills to the Caribbean and do just fine against the regatta series’ five other challengers and the defenders. “We’ll go down there and do what we do,” they say. “We’ll figure out how to sail the boat, get it fast and have fun.”

The post Townie Showdown in the Harbor appeared first on Sailing World.

• PRELIMINARY RESULTS
• PHOTO GALLERY

Aidan Naughton and Marina Barzaghi, who trekked north to the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in Marblehead from nearby Rhode Island, won the one that counted today.

Truth be told, it was the only race completed for 27 Lightning teams sailing for their Atlantic Coast Championship. On their nearest-to-the-shoreline racecourse, along with the Viper 640s, Lightning sailors were lucky enough to get off a challenging race in the early tendrils of a sea breeze, before it went kaput and the waiting game started, to no avail.

The Viper 640s got one in as well and that one was won by Justin Scott’s Mambo Kings. But yesterday’s leaders on Marek Zaleski’s Team Z were fourth across the line, a finish good enough to keep them at the top of the standings by 4 points over Peter and Rachel Beardsley’s Glory Days.

While Lightning and Viper racers drifted on the tide and patiently waited, they were taunted by the scenery of full spinnakers further offshore where the other circles enjoyed just enough breeze to continue apace with their respective races. The Etchells fleet got in three, with three different teams winning races. Ron Zarella’s team on Bob, however, knocked off a pair of seconds and a fifth and kept their lead padded to 5 points over Don Dowd’s USA 1397.

Bill Widnall’s veteran crew on the International One-Design Javelin, started the day with back-to-back race wins before closing it with a third, shuffling the top-three teams and putting Widnall and Co., at the top of the standings by 1 point over Carolyn Corbet’s Elektra, winner of the third race.

There’s a change in leadership atop the J/105 class as well, with Mathew Herbster’s squad on No Quarter putting up a trio of second-place finishes. Charlie Garrard’s Merlin, started the day with a race win and followed that with a shocker (7th) before making up for it with another race win.

Al Minella’s crew on the J/70 Level 5 did a bit of a horizon job on the fleet in the day’s first race by “winning the pin and banging the left,” says tactician Nevin Snow. A second in the next race and win in the third of the day has them 4 points clear of Jim Raisides and Charlie Pendalton’s Bad Hombres.

Adam Roberts and Alden Reid on Ripcord are all but running away with the Rhodes 19 series, sitting on 16-point lead with one final day of racing remaining. Ripcord was fourth In the Rhodes fleet’s only race of the day, but Dave Reynolds and Jeff Shoreman on McLovin’ were loving their race win, which moved them into the top-10 of the 28-boat fleet after putting up a pair of mid-fleet results on Friday. Above them in the standings, however, five boats have only 2 points between them. That’s Rhodes 19 racing: always highly competitive at Marblehead Race Week.

Seventeen ILCA sailors got their two-day series underway with four short mid-day races before the breeze shutoff. Jamie Carter, from Portland, Maine, made the winning move in the first race with an immediate jibe at the weather mark, quick thinking that allowed him to jump from mid-fleet and into the lead. With three third-place over the remaining races, Carter leads Nicolas Regnault by 5 points.

The post Haves and Have Nots On Marblehead Regatta’s Second Day appeared first on Sailing World.

• PRELIMINARY RESULTS
• FRIDAY PHOTO GALLERY

Brian Keane and his team on the J/70 team Savasana have always been quick in Marblehead. As a local, Keane knows the waters well and his has been a perennial top team at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week, but this weekend, a last-minute addition of local wizard and National Sailing Hall of Famer Jud Smith certainly got the team off to a good start on a day that left most competitors wondering where wind would come from—or if it would come at all.

Thus was the opening day of the final stop of the national regatta series, which ushered sailors out to Marblehead Channel in a fresh northerly that would eventually fight with an afternoon sea breeze that did eventually come. 

It was especially challenging for the J/70 fleet, contesting its New England Championship. The location of their race circle on the “Brimbles Line” had them sailing with and through the Town Class and 28-boat Rhodes 19 fleet. Short courses, lots of traffic, dramatically shifty winds and a day-long tide switch threw all sorts of challenges at the fleet. Savasana put up a 6-2-1 to lead the fleet after three races, but they lead by only a single point over second and third-placed teams, Dave Franzel’s Spring and Jim Raisides and Charlie Pendelton’s Bad Hombres (top Corinthian), respectively.

Adam Roberts and Alden Reid, on Ripcord, made seemingly easy work of the conditions in the 28-boat Rhodes 19 fleet, the largest fleet of the regatta. The duo put up a 1-2 to start the series with an 8-point lead over Stephen Uhl and Kathleen Lane on Woodstock. The top-five are tight, however, with past regatta winner Matt Hooks winning the second race to claw back points from his 14th in the first race of the day.

Rex Antrim’s Albatross leads the 13-boat Town Class fleet with a 3-1 and has 3 points to spare over past winners Berit and Karen Solstad’s Lille Venn. The sisters won the first race, but found themselves batting in mid-fleet in the next.

The regatta’s “Outside Line,” which features the IODs, Etchells and J/105 classes found itself smack in the middle of the two winds fighting each other, and the second race of the day turned inside out when the wind switched 180-degrees. The race committee let it play out. Ron Zarella’s team on the Etchells Bob managed a 3-3-1 to end the day with a 5-point margin over Robert Hitchock’s team on Chemical Monkey (9-1-2).

The IODs, which are sailing for a new perpetual trophy named after fleet stalwart Bill Widnall, are making the local legend work hard to get his name on the trophy’s first plaque. Greg Mancusi-Ungaro’s Viking went 3-1-2 to Widnall’s 1-4-3 scoreline, but last year’s overall winner—Carolyn Corbet’s Elektra—is tied with Widnall at 8 points apiece.

Charlie Garrard’s Merlin leads the J/105 fleet with two race wins and a third, while Chris and Marek Zaleski, and Jacob Bradt atop the Viper 640 fleet with a 1-2-5 and a 5-point lead over Peter and Rachel Beardsley. The Viper 640 fleet, with 19 entries, is contesting its New England Championship.

Saturday’s racing will welcome a 27-boat Lightning fleet that has assembled for its Atlantic Coast Championship, as well as the 19 sailors of the ILCA fleet.

The post Regatta Series In Marblehead Starts With a Twist appeared first on Sailing World.

Marblehead, Massachusetts, with its iconic deep harbor and jam-packed mooring field, is as picturesque as a New England coastal town can possibly be—a Shangri La or Pleasantville in the shadow of madcap Boston. And here on the harbor are three equally iconic yacht clubs that have been hosting the region’s biggestsailing fete of the summer for 135 years: Marblehead Race Week.

The rotation of hosting duties between the Boston, Corinthian and Eastern yacht clubs is a longstanding tradition that ensures the burden is shared among them, and this year, competitors of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week will be hosted by Eastern, the grandiose clubhouse on “the Neck.” With a large turnout of sailors, friends and family expected, Eastern will certainly be bustling each evening, while out on the vast Gulf of Maine from Thursday to Sunday, nearly 160 entries will be making their best efforts to earn Race Week’s historic trophies and class championships.

Vipers In the Pit

Sailors of the Viper 640 class will be vying for their coveted New England Championship title and among them are East Coast diehards of the class, including Henry Amthor, the Viper 640 New England Champion skipper from Norfolk, Virginia, whose team “Bob, Parker & Henry” won in 2023. As expected, there’s also a strong Canadian contingent returning, as well as Marblehead first-timer Doug Jensen and his 20-year-old son Jay, driving in from Topeka, Kansas.

Jensen, who grew up racing extensively in the Pacific Northwest, is relatively new to the class having bought his first Viper 640 in 2020. He’s trying the grow the class in his region and when the opportunity to race in Marblehead came up, he happily accepted the last-minute offer to come and race.

“The class is just so awesome,” Jensen says when we reached him and his son by phone as they were beginning their 24-hour trek. “They have a boat there for us to use I’ve never been there or raced on the East Coast, so I’m looking forward to having fun and racing on an ocean with currents and tides.”

Lightnings Strike Twice

The Lightning Class, which returned to the Race Week last year after nearly four decades, will bolster their return with an Atlantic Coast Championship title on the line and 27 teams registered. The class is enjoying a US resurgence thanks to long-term outreach efforts and programs to recruit younger sailors that are now bearing fruit. With their North American Championship on the calendar at Ontario’s Buffalo Canoe Club in August, Marblehead is the final stop before the big regatta. As a tight-knit grassroots one-design class that embraces the travel, it’s worth noting that only one of the 27 registered teams actually hails from Marblehead.

“There’s no fleet in Marblehead,” says CH Ritt, who won the regatta last year with Charles Quigley’s Chancy. “Last year was a lot of fun, but this time the fleet has a few more all-stars in it, including Bill Healy, from Niantic [Conn.], who would have to be considered one the favorites. While we did win last year, we will have our hands full this time.”

The third of the big championships to be contested over the weekend is for the J/70 class. As its New England Championship, the regatta will also serve as a world championship berth qualifier. Fourteen teams are on the roster, among them several top-level teams, including Brian Keane’s Savasana, which won Race Week 2023 and then placed fourth overall at the J/70 World Championships in St. Petersburg, Florida, last November, a regatta that was remarkable for the depth of the fleet.

The Regatta Classics

While the three big championship classes will share the “Tinkers Line,” the Outside Line further offshore will feature Race Week regulars of the J/105, International One Design and Etchells. The IOD’s defending champions and the 2023 regatta’s Overall Winner—Carolyn Corbet’s Elektra—are returning with the same crew but this time vying for a new trophy created to mark the accomplishments of fleet legend Bill Widnall. Widnall joined the Marblehead IOD fleet in 1966, and has since won 27 Marblehead season championships, 28 Marblehead Race Weeks, and 10 International Class World Championships.

The Halfway Rock Line, closer to the entrance to Marblehead Harbor, will host the other longstanding classes of Marblehead Race Week: the Rhodes 19 and Town classes, the latter of which will be sailing for its New England Championship. The enduring popularity and simplicity of the Rhode 19 continues to attract new sailors, and for this year’s edition 27 teams have registered, earning them bragging rights as the largest traditional class gathering of Race Week today. Twenty ILCA sailors will race on the Brimbles Line on Saturday and Sunday as the regatta’s only singlehanded dinghy class.

All parties and awards, including Sailing World’s Speaker Series on Thursday night featuring Race to Alaska class winner Adam Cove, will be hosted at Eastern YC with nightly food and entertainment. The regatta’s overall winner, which will earn a berth at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Caribbean Championship in the British Virgin Islands in October will be selected at the conclusion of the final Awards Ceremony. All regatta details and event information can be found here.

The post Regatta Series Rolls Into Marblehead appeared first on Sailing World.

On June 8, 2024, ahead of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week, the Widnall Prize was offered by the International Class (IOD) Fleet of Marblehead. The magnificent silver tray will be the perpetual trophy for the winner of the International Class at the annual regatta.  

The prize is dedicated to Bill Widnall, a legendary sailor in Marblehead, nationally, and internationally.  Widnall joined the Marblehead IOD fleet in 1966, and since that time has set a standard of excellence that is unlikely to be challenged by any future sailor.  To date, he has won twenty-seven Marblehead season championships, twenty-eight Marblehead Race Weeks, and ten International Class World Championships.

In addition, Widnall deserves much of the credit for bringing a new generation of sailors to Marblehead, top-flight competitors, including many who also won IOD World Championships – John Wales, Steve Wales, Charlie Hamlin, Ted Cook, Jud Smith, Bobby McCann, Peter Warren, and Bruce Dyson. Bill is a fierce competitor on the water, but always a generous, supportive, and gentle mentor ashore. He is a true sportsman who has been a quiet leader of the World Class for over fifty years (and counting.)

The prize is a beautiful sterling silver tray with a roped edge. It is hand-engraved in classic style. Across the upper part of the trophy are highlights of Bill’s achievements in the Class, the places where the number Bill’s accomplishments would be engraved in the trophy are intentionally blank – they will be engraved later—for Widnall is still sailing, and hopes to increment his accomplishments in each of those categories in the future.

The Marblehead Race Association and IOD Class will award this prize for the first time on July 28, 2024 at the conclusion of this year’s Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta at Marblehead Race Week. 

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Final Results

The 2023 edition of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week will be remembered for its challenging light wind but more so for the time local skipper Carolyn Corbet and her teammates outsmarted and outsailed the venerable champions of Bill Widnall’s International One Design Javelin. On the fourth and final day of Marblehead Race Week, Corbet’s team on Elektra won two come-from-behind races to win the regatta and then its Overall Championship title.

“We started the day only 1 point out of first and we’d been going back and forth with Bill—who’s won this regatta for who knows how long,” Corbet says.

In Sunday’s first of two races, Elektra rounded the first mark third, and with the quick sail-handling skills and sharp execution of this team of twenty-somethings, Corbet quickly  jibed, “jumped the fleet,” and at the next mark Elektra took control of the race.

“Ten boat lengths out from the leeward mark we were able to jibe on to starboard, and then we were able to get them [Widnall’s Javelin] on starboard,” Corbet says. “So, we were able to send them off the layline. I have an amazing crew that can pull off that kind of jibing, get the spinnaker down, and then jibe around the mark. We barely missed a beat and that right there probably won us the regatta.”

Corbet, of Marblehead, has been sailing the loaner International One Design for three summers and her team has proven to be a quick study of a boat that can take a lifetime to master, but Corbet says she’s had plenty of help from Widnall and others, and their success this weekend truly comedowns to the collective talent of her teammates.

As winners of their class, but Corbet, Rob Brower, Becker Ewing, Elizabeth Lonergan and Sandra Nygren were selected to represent Marblehead at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Caribbean Championship in the British Virgin Islands in October, where they will race against other overall winners from previous stops of the Regatta Series, as well as the 2022 regatta’s champion.

On the same circle as the IODs, a similar battle was playing out in the J/105 class where Charlie Garrard’s Merlin and Rick Dexter’s Brouhaha set off from their respective moorings in Marblehead Harbor with only 1 point between them. The goal of the day was a simple one for Garrard and his experienced crew: keep Brouhaha close and use their boatspeed to finish the job.

When the seabreeze finally filled after a long morning postponement, the two teams got right to work, tailing each other in the prestart and striking the starting line overlapped. Merlin had the advantage and Brouhaha tacked away. The race from there was all Merlin’s to lose.

“We just had to keep them close and we had to finish ahead of them,” Garrard says. “Even though they tacked away, we felt comfortable going left where there was more wind.”

The pair finished 2-4 and Merlin’s lead grew to 3 points, but in the final race, after leading off the start again, Garrard says they were on the downwind leg and crash jibed to avoid another boat, which lost them one place in the race, but fortunately nothing more—the final winning margin was 2 point and Merlin’s winning streak remains intact.

“I think we got off the line clean every day and the boat is going great upwind,” Garrard says. “As always, it helps to have a great crew.”

The return of the Lightning fleet was marked as another notable moment in Race Week history. According to class leader Bob Shapiro, it has been nearly 40 years since the International Lightning Class has competed at Race Week, and fittingly it was the two “old-timers” of the fleet that took second and first places after five races. At the top of the standings with two race wins was local legend Charles “CH” Ritt with Shapiro as runner up and winner of the weekend’s final race.

The Rhodes 19 Class sailed another competitive regatta with 22 boats providing plenty of action-packed mark roundings, and always ahead of the melee were Matt Hooks and teammate Rob Pascal, who won four of eight races to close with an impressive 25-point winning margin, earning Hooks the coveted Norm Cressy Trophy, which has been awarded to the regatta’s best-performing skipper since 1998.

On the same race circle, the Town Class sailed its New England Championship and after five races, Nick Cann and Andrea Dodgeon on Tonic emerged as the winners, scoring two race wins to finish 10 points ahead of Bill Heffernan and Larry Brown on Sweep.

ILCA sailors were particularly challenged with their first races canceled on Saturday due to weather. The race committee started them early on Sunday and completed one shortened race before the wind died. Once they got going again, it was strong current that caused numerous general recall starts, but at the end of the day, three races were sailed with Bill Rothwell winning the ILCA 7 division and Jeremiah McCarthy winning the ILCA 6 fleet.

Marblehead’s re-emerging Etchells class featured the area’s top sailors as well as experienced teams from outside the region, but none were as fast as Tomas Hornos and his teammates on Bob, which won two of six races and ended the series with a comfortable 10-point win. As the top fleet champion, Hornos also earned the Dave Curtis Perpetual Trophy, awarded by the Sailing Hall of Famer himself.

Henry and Barb Amthor, along with teammate Parker Moore, were the top Viper 640 team after winning the regatta’s final race for a 2-point New England Championship win over Marek Zaleski’s Team Z. Brian Keane and his teammates on the J/70 Savasana eked out a hard-fought win to secure the class’s New England Championship, another title for the team as they head toward the World Championship later this year.

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