{"id":74443,"date":"2022-09-06T14:04:12","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T18:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=74443"},"modified":"2023-05-07T00:02:55","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T04:02:55","slug":"marbleheads-marque-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/regatta-series\/marbleheads-marque-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"Marblehead&#8217;s Marque Classes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n        <section class=\"hydra-container\">\n\n\t\t\t                <div class=\"hydra-canvas\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/220730__NAUTICAL_IMAGES_1594_TODD-1024x681.jpg\" class=\"hydra-image\" alt=\"Rhodes 19 fleet\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/220730__NAUTICAL_IMAGES_1594_TODD-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/220730__NAUTICAL_IMAGES_1594_TODD-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/220730__NAUTICAL_IMAGES_1594_TODD-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/220730__NAUTICAL_IMAGES_1594_TODD.jpg 1500w\" \/>                <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n            <figcaption class=\"caption margin_top_xs full border_1 hydra-figcaption\">\n                <span class=\"hydra-image-caption\">The Rhodes 19 fleet is tightly packed off a start at the 2022 Helly Hansen <i>Sailing World<\/i> Regatta in Marblehead.<\/span>\n                <span class=\"article_image_credit italic margin_right_xs\">Paul Todd\/ outsideimages.com<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t            <\/figcaption>\n        <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n<p>\u201cPull up a chair and get yourself a Mount Gay and whatever\u2014actually, make that two because it\u2019s going be a long one,\u201d I advise the crowd that\u2019s lingering outside the party tent at the Boston YC on a balmy afternoon in July. The sun is setting on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/regatta-series-marblehead\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Helly Hansen <em>Sailing World<\/em> Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week<\/a>, and like the name itself, this traditional awards presentation runs longer than your average grip-and-grin. We would expect nothing less of a regatta that\u2019s been running since 1889 and is the most important gathering on&nbsp;the local sailing calendar. Aside from the&nbsp;individual top three of the 10 classes at this year\u2019s regatta, we\u2019ve got a few new trophies, and the Marblehead Racing Association peeps have theirs as well\u2014the perpetuals that locals cherish with a pride unique to this sailing-\u00adcrazed town north of&nbsp;Boston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before I get rolling with my emcee duties, I take a slurp from my own Mount Gay and Regatta Craft Mixers ginger beer and soak in the scene from behind the table on the stage, which is lined with Helly Hansen duffel bags, glassware and plaques. There\u2019s an aura of happiness that fills the tent, and there\u2019s also a healthy mix of males and females, of sailors young and old, of families and empty strollers, of tykes running amok. It\u2019s hard to put my finger on it, but there\u2019s something different than the other four stops of our Regatta Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }<\/style><div class='embed-container'><iframe src='https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JoltHvEEaAo' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe it\u2019s the Pleasantville-ness of the town itself that makes it seem as though I\u2019ve been dropped into one big family reunion. But it\u2019s more likely because of the prevalence of so many coed and family teams I\u2019ve watched on the water, including the father-and-son pairing of Jim and Nat Taylor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/regatta-series\/helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-marblehead-wrap\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">who eventually win the coveted perpetual Cressy Trophy<\/a>, a bronze spittoon awarded to the winners of what is deemed to be the regatta\u2019s most competitive class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Taylors: Father Jim, the naval architect, and son Nat, the recent college grad, hadn\u2019t bothered to register for the Rhodes 19 division under one skipper name or the other. They simply entered \u201cthe Taylors\u201d in the registration name field. On the racecourse over four days, they top the hottest local fleet, which is full of top-level teams of siblings, spouses, friends and roll-tacking post-\u00adcollegiate sailors getting in on the inexpensive one-design action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jim, who is 73 but doesn\u2019t look a day close to it, crews for Nat, who has&nbsp;the quicker reflexes to deal with all the boat-on-boat action. It also leaves the&nbsp;old man to tinker with the rig and jib trim, which he does best. \u201cI\u2019m really old,\u201d says Jim, who\u2019s been racing with Nat on and off since he was a junior sailor. \u201cWe were recently joking that one of the things that lured him into the sailboat racing thing was going out in Optis when he was about 10, and he went out and kicked my butt. He thought that was pretty cool, to beat Dad, so that lured him in, and we\u2019ve been sailing together since then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once Nat finished college and moved back to the area, they picked up where they left off, but today it\u2019s tougher to win races. \u201cI\u2019ve been in the class since winning Race Week back in the 1980s, but it was a completely different thing back then, and the talent level [was] nowhere near where it is right now,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s very high with college sailors \u00adjoining the fleet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it\u2019s not just the new-school \u00adhotshots getting into the old-school class that keeps the racing interesting for old-timers like Jim and everyone else. It\u2019s also the pace of the race. \u201cOne thing we like about the Rhodes 19 is that they are all pretty much equally slow,\u201d Jim says, \u201cwhich keeps the racing close. If you have fast boats, a couple of them get away and they\u2019re ahead by half a leg. With the Rhodes fleet, if you do it right, you gain a few lengths here and there, but that\u2019s about it. And it can all turn around on the next leg, so being slow is an advantage in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other popular \u201cslow\u201d fleet is the colorful Town class, which stands above all as the fastest-growing one-design action in Marblehead. The Town class, its historians say, has the distinction of being the oldest continuously raced fleet in Marblehead. These 16.5-foot lapstrake one-design dories\u2014some wood, some glass\u2014were \u201cdesigned as an affordable boat for the \u00adtownspeople, hence its name.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to the allowance of a \u201ctrawl mooring\u201d onto which the Towns can now tie up to at the far, shallow end of the harbor, it\u2019s also the easiest class to get into for those lacking a mooring. For this, the Townies can thank local preservationist Bart Snow, who is credited with Marblehead\u2019s Town class revival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBack in 1954, we had about 60 boats, and they sailed Race Week in two divisions,\u201d Snow says. He was one of them and later rejoined the fleet in the 1990s, which had since dwindled to 10 boats. About a decade ago, however, Snow began collecting used boats and fixing them himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI soon realized I didn\u2019t have time to do that, so I sold some to other people to fix, and that didn\u2019t work well because they would always do it \u2018next&nbsp;year.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He now leaves refurbishment of recovered Townies to the craftsmen of the Pert Lowell Company in nearby Newbury, Massachusetts, and he and other stalwarts are always on the hunt, scouring the internet and conducting recovery missions in places as far as Ohio and Kentucky. But they\u2019re mainly found in barns and lake houses in Maine and New Hampshire. The fleet is now up to 45\u2014and growing\u2014but there\u2019s one new requirement when recommissioning. \u201cThey were all white 10 years ago,\u201d Snow says. \u201cI tell people that they have to paint it something other than white, so when they are sailing up the harbor to get to the starting line, they are quite noticeable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With only a main and a jib, there are few strings to pull, and the boat can be sailed by two people with minimum fuss or skills. \u201cIt has a weather helm, so we move the mast forward to take the helm out,\u201d Snow says. \u201cOver the years, there\u2019s been some changes to the specs to make them go faster, changes like extending the skeg and making the centerboard slot smaller, but they don\u2019t plane and they\u2019re easy to sail\u2014all you need is a friend to come along.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For this year\u2019s Helly Hansen <em>Sailing World<\/em> Regatta at Marblehead Race Week, there were 18 Towns that competed over four days, two of those at the upper limit of the class wind range. The top boat after seven races was skippered by local sailmaker and national champion Chris Howes on <em>Believe It or Knot<\/em>. Snow crewed for Howes, which ruffled some feathers on account of there being too much talent in such a little boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Be that as it may, Howes and Snow only won by a single point, and they had to work hard to get it on the final day. \u201cThe Town class is mostly families and kids, and all types who just want to race,\u201d Snow says. \u201cWe race more than any other class [in Marblehead], four days a week. Many of the sailors just race to sail; they want to be on the water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I suppose that\u2019s the vibe I was picking up before starting the awards. As crazy as it sounds, that aura of bliss was exactly that: Everyone was just happy to be on the water, together with friends and family once again, checking off another Race Week and living their best Marblehead lives, no \u00admatter how fast or slow they go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the final stop of the Helly Hansen <i>Sailing World<\/i> Regatta Series, the \u201cslower\u201d classes continue to thrive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":74451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Dave Reed","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"157","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"The Town and Rhodes 19 classes continue to be the big draw for the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week, and why should be no surprise at all.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"","arc_website_url":"","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"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":true,"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":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true,"ad_targeting":"","sponsored_url":"","social_share":true},"categories":[157],"tags":[2869,181,285,2868,2859],"class_list":["post-74443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regatta-series","tag-helly-hansen-regatta-series-marblehead","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series-marblehead","tag-print-fall-2022","tag-regatta-series"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74443","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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}