Lake Wawasee, Indiana, is no stranger to Sunfish history. The Wawasee Yacht Club has been hosting sailors for decades, and when the USSCA Women’s North American Championship returned in early September, it was more than a regatta. It was a reunion, a celebration of legacy, and proof that the class is as enduring as fiberglass and wind. This year brought together 33 women sailors from across the country, spanning recent college graduate racers to great grand masters. The competition was fierce and the camaraderie unmistakable.

At the top of the scoreboard, Dartmouth University sailing alumna Taylor Eastman (Hyannis Port Yacht Club, Massachusetts) delivered a masterclass in steady sailing to claim the championship. Her Saturday playbook was straightforward and disciplined: clean starts near the pin, ride the first lefty puff, connect pressure down the course, and hike until exhaustion.

“I knew that consistency throughout the regatta would be key,” Eastman said. “My first race was my throw-out, but from there I focused on staying resilient and sailing each race fresh.”

Sunday’s lighter, shiftier breeze tested patience, but Eastman’s college lake sailing expertise helped her stay in phase. Her single-digit score line carried her to the championship — and a ticket to the 2026 ISCA World Championship in St. Croix.

Pre-Race Routine and Intuition Pays Off for Gretchen Seymour

Gretchen Seymour, Lake Bluff Yacht Club, captured second. “My intention was simple: be myself. This mindset showed up by arriving early each day to get my head into the game and to get out on the course early to check how the boat felt and to make small tweaks that helped free me up to focus on racing, stick to my pre-race routine, and trust my instincts,” she noted. “This year’s Women’s NAs was an incredible event — there’s really nothing better than the joy of great competition with some of my best friends.”

Making a concerted effort to stay consistent with her pre-race routine, Seymour added, “I try to check wind and compass readings on each tack, note shifts up the course and get a clear land reference for the windward mark. I like to also add a few acceleration drills to simulate the feel of starting clean off the line.”

Hometown Spirit

Finishing third carried nostalgia for Susan Tillman Berg, of Wawasee Yacht Club, who spent childhood summers on those waters to carry extra meaning. She and her two sisters hosted sailors in classic Midwest style, turning the regatta into a memorable end-of-summer celebration. Drawing a standing ovation and tears at the closing ceremony, they honored their late mother, Linda, who raced this event often. The weekend felt equal parts championship, part reunion, part home.

Vera Bradley and the “Wawa-She’s”

The regatta’s return to Wawasee echoed its 2007 style, when Pat Miller, co-founder of Vera Bradley and a member of the local “Wawa-She’s” women’s Sunfish fleet, rallied her tote-bag company to sponsor the event. Nearly two decades later, Vera Bradley returned the gift giving with every sailor receiving a tote bag (Berg pictured with bag), a small but symbolic reminder of the ties between women’s community, competition, and tradition.

For Emily Wagner (Davis Island Yacht Club, Florida), the regatta was a breakthrough. She not only earned fifth overall but celebrated her first race win at a world qualifier championship. “Saturday, my goal was to develop a plan and stick to it,” Wagner said. “The stronger breeze worked to my advantage, and the gradient wind kept things steady. I kept doing what worked, and suddenly I had a bullet!”

Sunday was a different story. Starting the day tied for the overall lead, Wagner battled the lake’s notorious shifts. “The lake did lake things,” she said with a grin. “I chased shifts more than I should have and took my four deepest finishes. But I never stopped racing every leg, and those extra efforts kept me in the trophies.”

Her takeaway was as much about mindset as mechanics: “Adapt faster. And don’t stop racing, even if you think you’re out. Mid-fleeters, give yourself credit — you’re often sailing a harder race than the leaders. But when it’s your time to shine, we’ll be cheering for you.”

The Trophy that Survived Katrina

The regatta’s perpetual trophy carries a story almost as dramatic as any sporty race. Named in honor of Linda Tillman, Susan Tillman Berg’s late mother, longtime WYC sailor and mentor, the trophy nearly vanished during Hurricane Katrina in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in 2005. Fourth-place winner (pictured with Eastman and the perpetual trophy) and grand master champ Gail Heausler, of Davis Island Yacht Club, accepted her dual awards and remarked that the Sunfish Women’s NA perpetual trophy was at the Bay Waveland Yacht Club in August of 2005 as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Anne Edwards, the 2004 champion, had brought the trophy back to her home club. When it became evident that the storm was likely to make landfall in Mississippi, Anne asked her brother-in-law to tuck it between a mattress and box spring in his home. In the storm, what remained of Clinton Edwards’ house was a cement slab. As debris removal teams cleared the roads, the trophy was found in the street. While scratched, it remains whole and continues to be awarded annually to the winner as a symbol of resilience, strength and continuity.

The Women’s Sunfish North Americans was first sailed in 1978 at Sakonnet Yacht Club in Little Compton, Rhode Island, and has since become one of the U.S.’s longest-running women-only championships. The 2025 great grand master champion, Lee Parks of Sarasota Sailing Squadron and Newport Yacht Club (Rhode Island), raced her first Women’s North American Championship in Mattituck, New York, in 1981. The range of experience in Wawasee, from newcomers to sailors in their 70s, underscores the Sunfish class’s inclusivity. Respect for the rules was matched by a sense of joy. As Wagner noted, “At mark roundings, the most common thing I heard was, ‘You have room!’ not ‘I have room!’ That’s the kind of fleet this is.”

For two breezy, shifty, story-soaked days in Indiana, the Women’s Sunfish North Americans offered everything: random bullets, tactical duels, family legacy, Katrina-proof hardware, and fashionable tote-bag swag. It delivered it all.

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The enduring Sunfish, created by Alexander Bryan and Cortland Heyinger back in the early 1950s, remains the most iconic sailing dinghy. But nowadays, there’s more than one fish in the big pond.

LaserPerformance (Velum Limited), which owns trademarks to the Laser and the Sunfish, was once the global Sunfish builder, but chronic supply issues forced the International Sunfish Class Association to seek an alternative source. Enter Zim Sailing, in Bristol, Rhode Island, which is now an official builder of the ISCA dinghy. To be clear: An ISCA is not a Sunfish, and only ISCAs are class legal.

But then, what of the Sunfish?

About 800 miles northwest of Zim’s shop is SERO Innovation, in Marine City, Michigan, which has been licensed by Velum to build the Sunfish (and Laser) for North and South America.

SERO CEO Chris McLellan and his company, Sunfish Direct, has been selling class-legal sails, hardware and boats. They’ve also been building a Sunfish-like craft called the SOL, which was McLellan’s approach to supplying affordable boats to sailing camps, schools and sailors unable to get their hands on new Sunfish or parts.

So, here’s where we’re at today: The ISCA is not a Sunfish, and the Sunfish is not ISCA class legal. The SOL is neither Sunfish nor ISCA. Got it?

The International Sunfish Class Association’s frustration finally came to an impasse in 2024, and that’s where the principles at Zim and its parent company, Starting Line Sailing, stepped into the picture. Zim was already in the final stages of building class-legal ILCA dinghies, as a result of the International Laser Class Association also breaking from Velum. Zim was keen enough to take on the ISCA too.

From new tooling built by their Rhode Island neighbors at Symmetrix, Zim has slightly tweaked the construction to rectify a few known shortcomings of older Sunfish, namely common leak and failure points and adhesion of foam flotation blocks inside the hull. Sprayed foam now acts to essentially lock in place the closed-cell flotation blocks and provides additional stiffness. Reinforcements in the maststep area and aluminum hardware backing plates should also help with longevity. There are also hardware upgrades, including class-legal Harken Carbo blocks on the boom and a 2-to-1 block on the traveler bridle.

With the first of its ISCAs splashed in late April, Zim now offers three different models, including two “SCA Club” versions. One has a wooden rudder and daggerboard (and retails for $5,700), and the other has glass blades and a lower-cost sail from North ($6,100). The Race model ($6,285) comes with Harken hardware, a North racing sail, and prespliced outhaul and cunningham control systems.

SERO’s first batch of vacuum-infused Sunfish were shipped from Marine City to its dealers in April. McLellan accepts that he’s now essentially blocked from the ISCA racing market, but his goal, he says, has always been to grow the sport from the bottom up anyway. “The frustration of getting Sunfish was fueling a decline,” he says, “and that’s where the SOL came from. The Sunfish is a great tool to get people sailing, and if we can make an impact there, it will ultimately help [ISCA] racing.”

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Lake Ray Hubbard, on the outskirts of Dallas, is a honey hole for Texan jig-slingers dropping hooks for white bass, catfish and crappie, but it’s also a sweet spot for fish of a different sort. We’re talking Sunfish, sailing’s most iconic and colorful one-design dinghy. Hubbard is plenty big, but when 100 sailors schooled for their world-championship title, it was indeed one fantastic feast.

Neck-deep in the action was Rod Favela, a competitor wearing multiple hats as boat wrangler, parts supplier, overnight repairman, broker, and entertainer. Those who’ve been in Favela’s position with a hand in hosting a major class championship know well the mental load: Racing in a world championship is tough. Doing it while on the clock is exhausting. Doing both well is superhuman.

The simple Sunfish came to the recreational sailing masses in the 1960s with Alcort Sailboats. The production run was a long one, and with a few other short-run builders, the hatchery eventually landed at Rhode Island’s Vanguard Sailboats and then finally LaserPerformance, which relocated production overseas to China in 2016 and now builds in Portugal.

Over the past decade, LP has frustrated Sunfish stalwarts and dealers, particularly in the US, with supply shortages and batches of poorly built boats. Sourcing boats, as well as class-legal replacement parts, has been a nagging issue for the class, all of which has prompted the International Sunfish Class Association to take matters into its own hands by licensing new builders and stripping LP of its ability to produce class-legal race boats.

It’s been a messy relationship, and one that was even messier when it came time to supply boats to world championships. Historically, Sunfish class world championships were provided-boat regattas that put competitors in even boats and injected new boats into the host fleet, or even started new ones. The convenience for all sailors to just show up in any country and race was a big deal. LaserPerformance stopped providing boats after the Worlds in Italy in 2022, and the last two (Miami and Texas) were bring-your-own, which is fine for the natives but not for foreign qualifiers who rely on charter boats. An international field is what makes a world championship legitimate.

The Sarasota Worlds in 2020 was the 50th anniversary of the class, and it was here where Favela, Mike Brown and the Rush Creek YC in Heath, Texas, put forth their bid to host the 2024 edition.

“Me being an LP dealer, on the world ISCA board and a Rush Creek member, it was a natural path for me to be involved,” Favela says. “The regatta chair, Mary Ann Hopper, is a very good Sunfish sailor too, and I gave her hell for not sailing in the event, which, by the way, was very wise of her.”

Favela being Favela, a top-level sailor with an equal amount of human energy, he went all in for his hometown championship. “I’m like: ‘I’m gonna sail. I’m gonna bring the boats and I’m gonna charter the boats, and we’re gonna fix the boats and help organize and sponsor and race, and I’m gonna kick some ass,’” he says with his ­characteristic and infectious laughter. “And that was ­working fine until Day One.”

Favela’s Vela Sailing operation is a sailor’s one-stop shop in nearby Rockwall, Texas, and as the local Sunfish dealer, he was the hook to source charter boats, especially for the incoming cadre of hot-shot Latino sailors. He took it upon himself, and his business’s reputation, to make sure the inbound LP boats, built time zones away in Portugal, were up to world-caliber standards. He was on the hook for 32 of them, at no discount, plus 110 new Texas Edition sails from North Sails at $600 a pop.

“When I talked to LP about their commitment to the Worlds, I said, ‘Listen, guys, this is a good opportunity to improve your reputation with the Sunfish class,’” Favela says. “‘So how about we work together on getting the boats a little better? And what I mean by better is at least go back as close as we can to what a Vanguard-built Sunfish was.’”

For any dealer supplying boats to a major regatta, the charter business is high risk and time consuming. “The logistics have many sides, then follows quality,” Favela says. “You have almost zero time to fix a boat that arrives four days before the first gun, and you have a customer who is coming from overseas with very little time to test, try, and feel comfortable with equipment, so everything has to be perfect. It is definitely a high-stress situation.”

Of the 100-boat fleet for the Rush Creek edition of the Worlds, 51 were privately owned boats. Forty-nine were charters, including Vela’s stash of 34 brand-new boats. “We needed more charter boats than what we could offer, so we had to rely on the private charters,” Favela says, which meant connecting owners with overseas customers and also managing transactions and logistics on the back end. “But it was amazing,” Favela says. “Everybody rolled up their sleeves, boats came in on triple-stack trailers from every side of the country, and everybody worked super hard to pull it off.”

The Texas Edition hulls—with an apropos red, white and blue, and Lone Star graphics scheme—made it to Rush Creek after an anxious holdup at a TSA-bonded warehouse in Georgia. With all hands on deck, screws went in, gelcoat blemishes got patched, and the goods were delivered to the sailors for a week of high-level racing.

“They were solid,” Favela says, satisfied in the extra effort and diplomacy that resulted in 32 race-ready vessels. For good measure, Favela kept one for himself, another dinghy in his personal stash.

His fascination with the Sunfish draws from his youth sailing days in Venezuela. There were no Optimists at the time, only the Sunfish left behind from the Pan American Games, which have long fueled South America’s strength in the class. Today, especially, Latin American sailors are highly respected for their big-wind, big-wave prowess, gleaned from ocean sailing and government-funded programs that nurture elite sailors to the world stage.

“They are scary-good,” Favela says of the Central and South American Sunfish sailors. “The Pan American status gets them support. They don’t throw a lot of money at them, but there is enough financial motivation to keep them engaged, so the competition is fierce.”

And because Latin American Sunfish sailors train in ocean venues, they are intensely kinetic with the boat. In Texas, for example, past world-champion Jonathan Martinetti, of Ecuador, led the way with three Rule 42 violations—pumping and rocking.

“They are very loud and aggressive with the way they work the boat,” Favela says, “and it works, but only if you do it the right way.”

And if you don’t, you get caught.

The physical prowess of the hard-hiking Latinos with their thunder thighs, however, wasn’t as applicable in the flat water and unpredictable windshifts dished out on Lake Ray Hubbard during the Worlds. These were conditions for world-champion Conner Blouin, of Charleston, South Carolina. Blouin, Favela says, is “just gifted and fast.”

His forte is simplicity in the boat, and his risk-management mastery gets him around the racecourse with relative ease. “He sails so clean,” Favela says. “He is able to cut his losses quickly. He’s very into the chess game on the water, but with sailing the boat, he doesn’t bother with all the adjustments—he’s more like hoist, play with the gooseneck, trim, keep it flat, clean starts, and off you go.”

Blouin’s polar opposite is the Master, Paul Foerster, a three-time Olympic medalist and consummate tweaker of the Sunfish’s quirky lateen rig. Foerster is “the walking evolution of sailing,” Favela says. “He’s never satisfied with the status quo and always trying to find a way to do something better.”

Naturally, that comes from Foerster’s illustrious career in highly tunable boats such as the Flying Dutchman and the 470, but how does he possibly find more speed in such an absurdly simple boat that’s been tinkered with by great sailors for more than 50 years? He’s big on fine-tuning the Jens rig, Favela says, which is essentially a nuanced way to tie the spars by adding a second halyard position to depower the sail, allowing lighter-weight sailors to hang with the big kids in strong winds.

There’s a big Jens, a little Jens, a control Jens, and gooseneck shifts fore and aft—Foerster uses them all. “He knows what he’s doing,” Favela says, “and while most of the adjustments on the Sunfish don’t give you a giant edge, Paul is extremely fast and knows how to use them.”

Foerster also crushes dreams downwind.

“He has such a crazy ability of developing the feel of what works,” Favela says. “I’ve learned from him that the boat really responds by sailing by the lee—until it starts to hate it. It’s proven that the boat does better if you jibe rather than pushing it by the lee. If you can surf the Sunfish, and at the same time you feel you’re going by the lee—jibe!”

Favela is fortunate to have Foerster as a training partner and mentor, and that leg up had him in good standing after the first day of racing. With a 15th in the first race, he was off to a good start, considering the stress and distractions he had to deal with before he even slipped his dolly into the water.

“I have a mental blessing in that I can switch off my brain from the land business once I hit the water and start racing,” he says. “I remember the feeling at the first gun, when Mark Foster (the PRO) put the class flag up. Seeing everybody lining up for the start, I had this big smile on my face. And then, as I’m going upwind after the start, it was like, ‘Holy sh-t, I’m racing, like, wow, OK, now I gotta really do it.’ Everything that had happened, everything that everyone at the club had done for a year and a half, was finally real.”

Feeding off the euphoria, Favela knocked off a third-place finish and then a sixth, and found himself fourth overall in the standings. The unpredictability and randomness of the day’s easterly wind was right up his alley, and that he somehow managed top-20 ­finishes in the super-competitive world-­caliber fleet was unexpected. That night, after cleaning gelcoat from his hands, his head hit the pillow hard, but his mind was still racing. “I was going over a story of myself, thinking that I cannot believe that for me to do well, it has to be chaos.”

The following morning, Favela was leading the day’s one and only race before losing it to Canadian Luke Ramsay, who would go on to finish second overall. Still, a second in this fleet was monumental, and he was still at the top of the fleet. All was good for the jovial Venezuelan-American spark plug.

But then the cold front arrived, and with it came a wind switch, a big breeze, and a tumble down the standings. Over the remaining days of the regatta, Favela piled on the points (38, 20, 23, UFD, 15, 19, 36). While he raises his hand and pleads guilty for taking big gambles and serving as mayor of Cornersville, Texas, perhaps the ­burden of work and play had finally taken its toll. Or maybe the youngsters and the wily masters of the fleet were getting sharper.

“In the Sunfish, the younger guys have the strength, maybe not the maturity,” Favela says. “But the sailors in their 20s and mid-30s, they have everything, the whole package, going for them. For those of us north of…not so much.”

There was also the sheer scale of the 100-boat fleet amassed on the lakeshore-bound racecourse, where clean air and open lanes didn’t come easily. “The fast guys go away very quickly in the conditions that benefit them for that race,” Favela says. “That group is the hardest in the Sunfish class because everybody is going at the same speed.

“So, a good start is more important when the conditions are more benevolent than on the extremes of the wind range because the whole mass is moving around the course at the same speed. The fastest Sunfish maybe goes 5.1 knots, and the slowest Sunfish sails at 4.9. So, horizon jobs happen based on geometry, not necessarily speed. So, if the conditions are not too variable, that mass remains together, like a big Roman army marching all together.”

While Blouin sailed away with the world title after sweeping the regatta’s final three races, Ramsay was a whopping 20 points in arrears, followed by six Latin American sailors and Foerster ninth as the top Grand Master (age 60 to 69). Fellow Grand Master Mike Ingham was 10th. Favela, at 14th, was the top Apprentice Master (40 to 49), a result that he’s certainly proud of.

“It makes me so happy that such an ­elementary boat can bring together so many countries to race at such a high level,” he says, “to see the team at the club, the family of Rush Creek working so hard to put together such a great event. It was a huge achievement to go hardcore racing with a great race committee, with a great crowd, and walk away thinking, Holy cow, if you finish top 10 of this thing, you are somebody. And kudos to those who did.”

The post The Texas Sunfish Invasion appeared first on Sailing World.

The International Sunfish Class Association announced the selection of Zim Sailing, Bristol, Rhode Island, as a new builder and supplier of class-approved boats and parts, which will come as welcome news to devotees of the classic centerboard dinghy introduced in 1952 and still racing globally.

According to a statement from Zim Sailing, class-legal boats will be built at its facilities in Bristol, alongside their other offerings (Flying Juniors, and their 420E). Zim is also currently building ILCAs, and is reported to be in the final approval stages with World Sailing before ramping up full production of US-built ILCAs.

The appointment of Zim Sailing is seen as a long overdue development for US and South American Sunfish sailors and dealers who’ve been challenged with supply issues over the past few years, with regard to boats and parts. Zim Sailing also brings to table an extensive dealer network and the ability to support events, as it does with its other institutional classes and recreational boats.

“Zim Sailing is thrilled to take up this exciting opportunity to bring production of a classic

sailboat back to Rhode Island,” said George Yioulos, Zim Sailing CEO. “Our team is extremely

excited and are already working hard to hit the ground running. We look forward to supporting the thousands of sailors already sailing ISCA boats, and long term being good stewards of this historic class.”

According to the release, Zim’s in-house production team is already advanced for production to begin next year, and if the sample builds are approved by the class and World Sailing, boats and parts should be available by the summer of 2025. Pricing is not finalized, but the builder says, “it is expected that prices will be similar to current.”
The International Sunfish Class Association met at its World Council meeting held in

Heath, Texas, at the recently concluded World Championship to approve Zim’s builder status. “They will be producing a top-quality boat that will be competitive with our existing class-approved boats, which will help accelerate the class’ current growth,” said ICSA president, Guillermo Cappelleti. “And with manufacturing in the US, distribution to our core markets of North, Central and South American will be simpler, faster and more efficient.”

Zim, the release states, “will support the class by providing charter boats at the North Americans, Worlds, and other events. There will also be a certification fee paid on boats and equipment, which will be used to help grow the class.”

The post Zim Secures Sunfish Class Builder Status appeared first on Sailing World.

This second Thursday in January is a perfect Florida winter morning, the sort of weather the local chamber of commerce dials up regularly—a light easterly breeze barely ruffling the shallow, pristine waters of Sarasota Bay. Along the beach that fronts the busy Sarasota Sailing Squadron, there is commotion; like every early Thursday morn from September through May, several dozen seasoned gals known as the Luffing Lassies, almost all with their diverse and accomplished working lives in the rearview mirror—and none of whom will be remotely mistaken for college kids—are rigging up their prams, 420s and Sunfish for their weekly fix of sailboat racing. This particular Thursday, however, is somewhat different: It is the running of the 24th Annual Lilly Kaighan Memorial Regatta, so named for the Lassies’ founder, the somewhat obsessed sailing lady who came up with the idea for this organized madness in the first place—some five decades ago.

My introduction to this uncharted world is a ­fellow Rhode Island snowbird like myself, on hiatus from the New England winter for a few months. Before her recent retirement, Lee Parks was the inshore director at US Sailing for 33 years, but she’s also a lifelong Sunfish racer. “I never outgrew my junior boat,” she says. “The class has a culture that’s just phenomenal.”

She’d competed in midwinter Sunfish regattas in Sarasota many times and considered it a premier venue for dinghy racing, but she never knew about the Luffing Lassies until she inherited a property nearby, was introduced to the group, and quickly became one of them.

“They envelop you,” she says.

Lee loves the weekly competition but adds: “The biggest, best thing they do is bring in new people to the sport, teach them to sail, and give them an outlet to the water. They’re so welcoming.”

And so is she, inviting me to walk the beach while she makes some introductions.

So, thanks to Lee, there I find myself, chatting up the Lassies. And, oh my, what a story they have to tell. These days, there’s much hand-wringing from cranky old men like myself about the decline in sailboat racing. But here on the Gulf coast of Florida, where geezers abound, the Luffing Lassies and their 700 counterparts in the Florida Women’s Sailing Association, comprised of nine yacht clubs from Dunedin to Venice (the Salty Sisters from St. Petersburg, the Dinghy Dames from Davis Island, the Mainsheet Mamas from Tampa, the Windlasses from Dunedin, and so on) represent nothing less than a sailing renaissance, where they’re having trouble figuring out where the new members in the ever-expanding fleets will store their boats. They admit it’s a fine problem to have.

Is there something here that the Luffing Lassies can tell us about sailboat racing that perhaps should be obvious? Like, if you form a group that’s open, accommodating, friendly and supportive, and you invite just about anyone sharing the same mindset who wants to learn and challenge themselves, you can come up with something cool, unique and wonderful, where people dive in and thrive? As in, if you build it, they will come? The Lassies, I discover, in both their long history and unrivaled passion for sailing, have quite a bit to say about it all.

Ursula Olson has been there from the beginning, before the Luffing Lassies taught and introduced more than 500 women to the sport, back when it was originally known as the Sarasota Sailing and Sinking Society. “We used to capsize quite a bit,” she confesses.

Olson, who tells me she’s been a Lassie for 44 of the 50 years they’ve been in existence, says the organization was launched when Kaighan, a recent arrival from Tampa where she’d started a similar group, approached a handful of women about doing the same thing in Sarasota.

“She had two Clearwater Prams (a close cousin to the Opti) and said she had access to three more, so there were five boats,” Olson says. “Learning to sail was very attractive to many, including myself. The message always was: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you.’ She was absolutely the most accommodating, positive person. And she attracted those kinds of people. Some come and go quickly because they don’t want to mess up their hair or their fingernails. But that’s not who we are. There are about 90 Lassies today, ranging in age from their 30s to their 90s. Our 90-year-old still sails, not racing, but on a Hobie Wave we have for fun sailing. Everybody feels like they belong. It’s empowering. I’d say 95 percent of my friends are from this group. I’ve definitely found my tribe.”

That tribe, I soon learn, is an accomplished one, whose previous occupations include airline pilots, lawyers, doctors, even a federal judge. Then there’s Linda Schwartz, who joined the Lassies in 2009 after retiring to Sarasota following a career in the Army as a chief warrant officer.

“I was working out in the gym when somebody asked if I was interested in joining a women’s sailing group,” she says. “Yes, I was! I knew immediately when I walked in that this was for me. This isn’t mahjong; we’re a pretty Type A bunch. Actually, we’re a sisterhood. You put us all together, and we’re a force to be reckoned with.”

Schwartz, a former FWSA president with a solid mechanical background running Army maintenance units, has earned the nickname “Miss MacGyver.” She oversees the platoon of “Maintenance Mamas” who work on the 15 Sunfish the Lassies keep for training newcomers in the offseason summer months when they aren’t actively racing. Once the newbies get a season of racing under their belts, they generally procure their own boats, and the cycle repeats itself.

“We have a long-term planning committee now because we’ve gotten so big and are growing so much,” Schwartz says. “How do we manage it? We’re outgrowing the area we have at the Squadron. Our group has always been about word of mouth. The locals always knew. But now we’re getting more publicity, which means more women. It gets complicated.”

Once everybody is rigged and ready after a skipper’s meeting, which commences with laughter, stretching and calisthenics, I hop aboard the safety boat to observe the on-the-water action with a pair of the so-called “Starboard Studs” (everyone gets a nickname), the male volunteers from the Squadron who man the race committee and mark boats. “When the whole #metoo thing happened, they thought about changing our name,” says studly Pete Buros, one of the safety officers. “Instead, they gave us shirts with the name on it. They’re fun to wear in bars.” Buros intimates that they are excellent conversation-starters.

Before heading out, Lorri Kaighan—the daughter-in-law of founder Lilly, who succumbed to breast cancer at far too young an age—hands me a copy of the day’s schedule, which reads:

“The Lilly Kaighan Memorial Regatta is a special day for all Luffing Lassies. It celebrates its founder by having its members participate in a typical day of competition by racing in Clearwater Prams, a Sunfish or a 420. (The Prams and 420s had three boats each; with 30 boats, the Sunfish has become the group’s predominant class.) And the course is the original one that has been sailed by the Lassies for over 45 years: Modified Olympic (for the Sunfish and 420s) and Triangle for the Pram. It is a day filled with camaraderie, good competition, special trophies, and a luncheon to celebrate the day. The perpetual trophies were handmade by Lilly’s oldest son, Jim Kaighan, who resides in Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas. Lorri Kaighan made the individual trophies this year. And they were definitely made with a lot of love.”

With that, the fun begins.

Three races unfold, the first two in a light southeasterly, the third in a building westerly as the sea breeze kicks in. There is a disparity in prowess and efficiency on the starting line. A handful of competitors several rows deep seem not to have gotten the memo that there’d be racing today, which I realize is utterly beside the point. “Everyone who competes is a winner” is somewhat of a cliché, of course, but in this event, it is absolutely true. There are some midfleet clusters at the top mark, and some obvious fouls committed by the tail-enders, but not a raised voice to be heard. It’s all so…conversational and punctuated with laughter, so totally refreshing.

All that said, the sailing is crisp, clean and very, very competitive at the front of the busy Sunfish fleet. There is also a clear, dominant competitor, a mere wisp of a woman on a Sunfish called Wild Child named Lisa Brown Ehrhart, who runs away with the Memorial Regatta with three straight bullets.

Like every Lassie, it seems, Ehrhart has a unique background. Originally from the Virgin Islands, where her family ran a yacht-management business, for years she worked as a professional captain, delivering boats and skippering charters. Though she never raced sailboats in the islands, she says: “I had the gift of growing up on the water. There are many people who are better than me in terms of tactics, the chess game. But I do understand the water, as a surfer and windsurfer, and maybe that’s the only piece I have that’s a little different.”

When she moved to Florida so her kids could attend high school, she immersed herself in dinghy racing for the first time. “I needed to get on the water and sail, and I discovered the Lassies,” she says. “It was very humbling to start off with. But I’ve grown to love it. It’s the culture that’s so amazing. It’s like a Caribbean vibe, so relaxed.”

At 5 feet and 100 pounds, Ehrhart says the regatta’s two early light-air races played perfectly to her strengths. And she credits professional sailing coach Mike Ingham—whose wife, Delia, is a Lassie and recently organized a new Sunfish fleet at the Sailing Squadron—with “truly helping me develop my newly acquired racing skills.”

But, like every other Lassie I speak with, it is her fellow Luffing mates that really make the difference. “There are some really talented, amazing women here,” she says. “We learn from each other. We’re just really passionate about being here and sailing together.”

So, what to make of all this? It’s pretty simple. In these divisive days, when we fret about politics and the economy and every other bloody thing, at least one thing in this madcap, crazy world of ours is certain: The Lassies will be back at it next Thursday, bright and early.

The post Sarasota Sailing’s Luffing Lassies appeared first on Sailing World.

Excerpt from Second Wind, by Nathaniel Philbrick. Published by arrangement with Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright (c) 2018 by Nathaniel Philbrick.

On Friday, April 23, Bruce Perry, a friend who was the administrator of the Conservation Commission on Nantucket, called to tell me the town was opening Sesachacha Pond that day. All winter he’d heard me talking about my dream of one day sailing “through the cut.” As it turned out, we were scheduled to have dinner with Bruce and his family that night, and since he planned to watch the cut’s completion that afternoon, he said he’d tell me about it in the evening.

Bruce and family lived in what’s called an upside-down house (bedrooms downstairs, living room and dining room upstairs) overlooking Long Pond in Madaket on the western end of the island. It was the perfect place to hear about a pond opening. Apparently, Sesachacha had been at a record high, so when the cut was finally completed, it had come roaring out in a way that dwarfed the relative trickle I had seen in October. Bruce recounted how fish and even eels were caught up in the rush of water that had quickly carved out an opening the size of a small river. If anything, it should be even bigger by the next afternoon when I planned to go sailing.

“But, Nat,” Bruce cautioned, “it’s nothing to fool around with. There’s an awful lot of power in that pond. And once you’re out there in the ocean, you’re gone.”

That evening, during the drive back into town, I promised Melissa that I was more curious than I was determined to sail through the cut. I just wanted to take a look. And, to be truthful, Bruce’s words had a sobering effect. I wasn’t going to go dashing out there like the Lone Ranger. I didn’t want to wreck my boat or drown myself. I really didn’t.

I spent Saturday morning in the Nantucket Atheneum, the town library. The building, particularly in the wing where the archives were stored, had a Miss Havisham feel to it, as though it were still suspended in a time that the world had long since passed by. Although a spectacular and much-needed renovation project has given the building a whole new ambiance, that morning in the spring of 1993, as I read my way through a stack of ancient letters, I felt as if I too were a kind of artifact blanketed with dust.

By the time I set out for Sesachacha around 1 in the afternoon, I was anxious to wash off the past and rejoin the present. Melissa, the kids and Molly were in the car with me. The plan was this: They’d help me with the boat on the southern end of the pond, then drive over to the other side, where they’d walk the quarter mile or so to the cut. The subject of my sailing through the cut was studiously avoided.

When we pulled up to the launch ramp, the pond seemed higher than ever. In the distance, we could see the backhoe over on the barrier beach, but from our perspective it looked as though the cut might have closed in overnight — at least that was the claim of an elderly gentleman who’d brought his two dogs for a walk along the pond’s edge. “I tell ya,” he said, “they should let the old-timers do this kind of thing. These scientific guys don’t know what the hell they’re doin’ when it comes to pond openings.”

I was reserving judgment. Appearances, particularly when you’re looking at a distant beach, can be deceiving.

The breeze was moderate out of the southwest with plenty of peppy puffs. Soon I was sailing on a beam reach toward where the cut, if there was one, should be. I passed a father and his son fishing in a motorboat. As I entered the midsection of the pond, I saw that Melissa, the kids and Molly had parked and were now walking along the pond’s edge toward the ocean. I waved, but they were too far away to notice.

It was then I realized that there was a cut. It was wider than I would ever have imagined — maybe 30 to 50 feet. A virtual torrent of water was rushing through the opening, a white-water river that must have been close to an eighth of a mile long as it curved out toward the sea and collided with the ocean’s surf in a distant intermingling of brown and blue waters. I now knew what Bruce had meant when he had spoken of the pond’s power, a power that showed no signs of waning more than 24 hours after it had first been tapped.

Someone was standing on the northern edge of the pond cut. After watching me for a while, he waved and called out to me. It was Bruce. The question was how to get close enough to speak to him without being immediately sucked out to sea.

I approached cautiously from the north, where a sandbar had been formed by the turbulence at the cut’s opening.

“Bruce!” I shouted. “What do you think?” “Don’t do it! The current is really ripping!”

I decided to sail past the pond opening just to give it a look. Although I could feel the current grab my boat, torquing it seaward with a trembling, atavistic lurch, the cut wasn’t the all-consuming portal to destruction that I had first assumed it would be. There was enough of a breeze to let me flirt along the opening’s edge without losing myself to the current.

The cut was wide. There was plenty of space for me to sail through it, even with my sail all the way out. It also looked fairly deep. I did notice, however, quite a bit of wave action at the end of the cut. In fact, it looked like a sandbar had formed out there. Even if I did make it through the cut alive, how in God’s name was I ever going to sail back to the pond? But still, the opening beckoned.

Suddenly I was filled with a desire to just close my eyes and ­surrender myself to the flow. Meanwhile, Melissa and company were gradually making their way along the beach. Should I wait for them? If I did, I might lose my nerve.

I tacked and began to bear away toward the cut.

The post A Thrill-Seeking Sailor Braves the Rapids of a Breached Nantucket Pond appeared first on Sailing World.

Barbara had never sailed until a week after we met in October 1962, when I invited her to go sailing on my Thistle off City Island, New York. It was blowing about 10 knots, and a friend joined us for additional ballast. ­Barbara was terrific. She hiked out, worked the jib sheet, and was enthralled with the spinnaker. She smiled the entire time.

Later, back onshore, my buddy whispered to me, “She’s a keeper.” Ten months later, we were married.

Six years and two children later, Barbara suggested I buy a Sunfish. I’d seen the multicolored sails racing on Peconic and Southold bays off the North Fork of Long Island, but I had never set foot on one. So in August 1968, we bought the first of 11 Sunfish our family would own over the next 49 years.

Months later, in April 1969, on a crisp spring day with a warm sun and 8-knot breeze, ­Barbara and I set off in our Sunfish across Little Peconic Bay. We were dressed for the occasion, and both of us were looking forward to our first sail of the season. It had been a long time since we’d sailed together, and if Barbara had any qualms, she concealed them well. We beam-reached across the bay, both of us enjoying it immensely. We landed at Nassau Point, and I pulled our Sunfish onto the beach so we could stretch our legs with a short walk. The air started to cool, and after 20 minutes, we opted to sail back.

The breeze hadn’t changed direction or strength, so I guided the boat into the water and pointed its bow out to sea.

The water was 6 inches deep at the stern and a foot deep at the bow. Barbara settled herself on the starboard, windward side with her feet in the cockpit while I held onto the traveler. The mainsheet hung loosely. As I turned around to reach for the boat’s daggerboard, which was lying on the sand about 3 feet away, I heard Barbara suddenly yell for help. A gust of wind was propelling her out to sea on a runaway Sunfish. I sprinted into the ice-cold water with the daggerboard in my hands. The boat was moving faster than I could run. I yelled, “Barbara, catch!” and tossed the daggerboard to her as hard as I could.

The board smacked the rudder and fell into the water behind the boat, but my catlike bride snatched it and dragged it into the boat. As she sailed farther away, I went from waist to ­shoulder deep in the frigid water.

“Put the daggerboard in the slot in the ­middle of the boat,” I hollered.

She did so immediately.

“Grab the rope that’s attached to the boom, and hold it loosely in your right hand,” I then yelled.

She did.

“Hold the steering stick in your left hand. You’re going to turn the boat around so it will head toward me.”

“OK,” said Ms. Cool. The boat was now about 30 feet away and sailing toward the horizon. “Keep the stick pointed in the middle of the boat, and slowly pull the rope toward you.” She did, and the boat accelerated away.

“On three, push the stick away from you as far as you can,” I called after her, my voice trailing away. “As the boat starts turning, move to the opposite side, and put the stick in your right hand and the rope in your left.” She followed directions perfectly, and the Sunfish came about.

I thought for sure that this was the end of my marriage. I plunged into the water and took three or four strokes before the Sunfish sailed right to me. I pushed Barbara back on board, and with me holding onto the side, we sailed the 20 feet or so until I could stand and wade ashore. We made it home safely, in about a half-hour, but it was several years before Barbara agreed to go sailing with me again.

That summer, we joined Southold YC, where our children learned to sail and I helped co-found the “Annual World’s Longest ­Sunfish Race, Around Shelter Island, New York.” I joined the U.S. Sunfish Class Association, and as our children grew older, we participated in many regattas within 150 miles of Long Island. I’ll never forget when our two older boys, Joe and Sean, were 13 and 12 years old, and we competed in the North American Championships in Barrington, Rhode Island. They were racing with about 120 other boats in the ­consolation fleet. Sean was 90 pounds at the time. At the ­lobster dinner that night, we dined with several adult sailors, who talked about how they sat to leeward trying to blow air into their sails while some little kid was hiking out and sailing away from the fleet. That was Sean, of course, who ended up winning the race and finishing in the middle of the fleet with a score of something like 416 and 3/4 points.

After the children had grown, I teamed up with my sailing buddy, Dr. Dick Heinl. We traveled to regattas as far away as Mississippi and Texas, as well as throughout the Northeast. Among those on the Sunfish racing circuit, we became known as the “Thelma and Louise of the Viagra Set.”

Sunfish sailors always have a good time, and last summer, Dick, at age 91, the oldest competitor at the U.S. Masters Championship, received a standing ovation and a walker for his participation.

Over the years, Barbara accompanied me to regattas in Chicago, Upstate New York, Cape Cod and elsewhere. Eventually, she agreed to give Sunfish sailing another try.

We launched off Southold YC and frolicked for more than an hour, sailing on a beautiful and clear summer day with a gentle 10-knot breeze. On the way back to the beach, I asked how she felt.

“This is fun,” she answered. “Just the way I like it.”

“Then you’ll join me again sometime?”

“Yes,” she replied.

In those days, Southold YC had a small T dock extending about 10 feet into the water and then about 18 feet or so parallel to the beach. My plan was to sail alongside the dock and drop off Barbara.

The breeze was favorable for what I wanted to do, and as we approached, I noticed a few young children playing at one end of the parallel dock. I approached the other end. The water was shallow, and I asked Barbara to lift the daggerboard halfway. She did, and as we came slowly alongside the dock, one of the boys jumped right in front of the boat. I shoved the tiller hard away to avoid the child, and the boom swung over and hit the raised daggerboard. Barbara and I were both sitting to starboard, and the boat capsized in about 2 feet of water. Barbara did a backward somersault into the bay, stood up soaking wet with her hands on her hips, and glared at me in total disbelief.

She did forgive me, however, in the form of a terrific gift for which I shall forever be grateful: my email name “joesunfish.”

It’s the people and the stories that make each class unique. I invite you to share your story, your class. Write me at editor@sailingworld.com so I can share it and make old new again.

To read more stories about sailors who love their one-design classes, new and old, click here.

The post My Class, My Story: The Sunfish appeared first on Sailing World.