{"id":70130,"date":"2021-04-03T23:15:40","date_gmt":"2021-04-04T03:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=70130"},"modified":"2023-05-06T23:08:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T03:08:23","slug":"sunkissed-sailing-on-saturday-at-st-pete-nood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/regatta-series\/sunkissed-sailing-on-saturday-at-st-pete-nood\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunkissed Sailing on Saturday at St. Pete NOOD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Photo <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Photo highlights from Saturday’s racing at the 2021 Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta St. Petersburg.<\/span>\n \u00a9Paul Todd\/OUTSIDEIMAGES.COM<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

Between catamaran sailboats flying by the St. Pete Pier and doublehanded teams taking off around Tampa Bay for the North Sails Doublehanded Distance Race, St. Petersburg delivered another stellar day of sailboat racing for all the teams competing in the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Former St. Petersburg YC commodore Harvey Ford and co-owner Tom Mistele took line honors on board their J\/112e Silver Surfer for the North Sails Doublehanded Distance Race. \u201cJust perfect conditions out there today,\u201d says Ford. \u201cClear skies and 15 to 18 knots from northeast. Tom mostly drove the boat and I scurried around to fix and adjust things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

For the doublehanded challenge, today\u2019s 17.5-mile course sent teams around eight navigational marks in Tampa Bay, which included a lot of close reaching and one fetch leg. Silver Surfer decided against using a spinnaker because in these conditions, according to Ford, \u201cGetting the kite up is easy; it\u2019s when it has to come down is when it separates the men from the disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The other J\/112e dopodomani, with owner Christopher Ziballo and crew Cliff Farrah, led the majority of the race. Ford said a key moment in the race was during leg six when Ziballo and Farrah chose to tack downwind with the jib, while Ford and Mistele headed straight downwind toward the mark, going \u201cwing on wing\u201d with the jib. That strategy proved effective and Ford said they made up a lot of ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

He joked that that perhaps the competitors were distracted watching them catch up, because they unfortunately made a navigational mistake and sailed past the turn marker. \u201cWe made the turn, and once they realized their error it was too late. Truly, though, hats off to them for a great race.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Ford and Mistele had not doublehanded the boat before a month ago, and he is now sold on the format. \u201cAs a boat owner it\u2019s glorious to only have two people to worry about with advance planning and meals, etc.,\u201d he says. \u201cNo disrespect to my regular crew, but it is nice just being able to show up and bring your sandwich and off we go. I loved this new format of racing and will certainly do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The A Class Catamarans are the largest class in the regatta and are divided between two subdivisions: Foilers (that use hydrofoil technology and can lift out of the water), and the Classics (which still have lifting technology but more so \u2018skim\u2019 over the water).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

These supercharged single-sail, single-person boats are very light, all carbon, and extremely powerful, testing the individual\u2019s athleticism and smarts. On Circle B, they had a range of conditions between 15 knots down to six or 7 knots at times, according to Ben Hall. Hall, who\u2019s owned 34 A Cats in his career in addition to many of the class\u2019s trophies, is currently leading the Classic fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

In addition to the changing wind strength, Hall said the course provided a lot of opportunities to capitalize, or be caught. Such as in today\u2019s third race, Hall initially got shut out at the committee boat, which he ended up hitting. \u201cAnd I also hit OH (Rodgers, currently in second place overall), so I had to end up doing a circle and a half to clear myself,\u201d Hall says. \u201cSo I went out to the right side of the course and ended up winning the race.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

He said overall the racing was tight today. \u201cWell, except for Ravi [Parent, who is leading the foiling division]; who was just \u2018gone\u2019. He\u2019s mastered jumping on the foils earlier than anyone else, which of course adds at least five knots of boatspeed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

For Parent, this is the first regatta he\u2019s officially raced his new foiling A Cat, and he\u2019s really pleased with the performance. In the six races sailed, he\u2019s won all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

In the six-boat Melges 15 fleet a battle is shaping up between new owner Marlene Plumley, with Scott Steele driving on board Bubbles, and father-son team Diego and Zack Carvajal on their charter boat USA 102, tied at 14 points after eight races. Plumley is currently leading on tiebreaker after winning the last race of today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

This is Plumley\u2019s first racing boat, and she is loving it. She teamed up with Steele rather \u201cserendipitously\u201d and as the two familiarize themselves with the boat and sailing together, \u201cwe\u2019ve improved every race,\u201d Plumley says. \u201cRacing has also gotten really tight; today only boat lengths separated the teams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the Carvajal\u2019s first time sailing together in a regatta, and according to Diego, his son Zack is \u201cdefinitely the driver in the boat; I\u2019m just along for the ride.\u201d Zack, 17, races on his high school sailing team in South Carolina, sailing the 420s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was some adrenaline this morning; getting out there it was a washing machine out there with big waves and blowing, the wind gusts probably in the 20-plus range,\u201d Diego says. \u201cBut going upwind is Zack\u2019s specialty and he really did well even in all that chop. We hit that windward mark in first quite a few times. It\u2019s his first time sailing an asymmetric spinnaker so our downwinds weren\u2019t quite as forgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

In PHRF 1, Michael Siedlecki\u2019s Tack Tick, a Martin 243 overtook the lead from Wasabi, a Farr 395, with three first-place finishes; and in PHRF 2 the J\/105 Breezing Bayou owned by Michael Stephen and the J\/29 Family Circus, owned by Robert Wetmore, are tied at 11 points, with Breezing Bayou leading on tiebreaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Racing concludes tomorrow and the overall winner will be selected to represent St. Petersburg at the Helly Hansen NOOD Caribbean Championship.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The North Sails Doublehanded Distance Race joined in on the Helly Hansen NOOD St. Petersburg fun while the action continued on the PHRF, dinghy and A Class Catamaran circles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Laura Muma","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20210403","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"157","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"The North Sails Doublehanded Distance Race joined in on the Helly Hansen NOOD St. Petersburg fun while the action continued on the PHRF, dinghy and A Class Catamaran circles.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"SXWPK4WYHRCU5G6IIIFV7QH6CI","arc_website_url":"story\/nood-regattas\/sunkissed-sailing-on-saturday-at-st-pete-nood\/","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[177,94],"class_list":["post-70130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regatta-series","tag-racing","tag-st-petersburg"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}