{"id":77758,"date":"2024-05-23T11:21:09","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T15:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=77758"},"modified":"2024-05-28T16:04:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T20:04:52","slug":"detroit-racing-on-the-rise-with-regatta-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/regatta-series\/detroit-racing-on-the-rise-with-regatta-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Racing On the Rise With Regatta Series"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Detroit <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Melges 24s race at the 2007 NOOD Regatta in Detroit.<\/span>\n Tony Bessinger<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

There are two hot items off the Detroit news wire this year. Let\u2019s start with the big one: the reversal of six decades of population decline. Resurget cineribus<\/em>, indeed. Then came word that America\u2019s biggest and longest running regatta series was returning to the Motor City. What was once the National Offshore One Design Regatta when last held in 2010 is now the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series Detroit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Detroit\u2019s population, sailboat racing on Lake St. Claire is also on the rise. Resurgent navigare<\/em>, if you will. That\u2019s according to Charlie Hess, an avid one-design sailor and treasurer of the all-seeing Detroit Regional Yacht Racing Association. Hess is one of ten J\/120 owners who will be racing the Detroit edition of the Regatta Series over the last weekend in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cParticipation in all of our events was dropping dramatically,\u201d Hess says. He himself was once in the mix of the nearly 200 boats that would gather to race on any given Saturday during the short season. \u201cIt was huge in the 1980s and early 1990s, but it just started going down and down and down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just before the COVID pandemic struck, he says, they were lucky to get 30 boats to show up, and even those were spread across six different types of classes.The Association has been tackling the decline through a number of initiatives, however, and Hess is now bullish on the region\u2019s resurgence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDetroit is lucky to have 12 events that are run well and have good infrastructure,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve got robotic marks, we\u2019ve streamlined our courses and classes. A year ago, we bought in ORC as a standalone class and now we have three ORC classes; A B and C. That was what the sailors wanted and we\u2019re seeing a real and positive trajectory for sailboat racing in Detroit. It\u2019s all on the up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mix of Classes For Regatta Series in Detroit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Regatta Series\u2019 reunion with its former hosts at the Bayview Yacht Club<\/a> and its storied clubhouse on the Detroit River, is a long time coming. In the heydays of the nine-event NOOD Regatta Series, this Great Lakes stop was remarkable\u2014and memorable\u2014for its eclectic mix of larger keelboats and level-rated classes, its \u201cwarhorses,\u201d emerging one-design sportboats and the classic plastics, the likes of the C&C 35s, Cal25s and Crescents, to name a few. The bigger boats of the era came with sizable crews and their thirst ashore was unquenchable. It was a good run until the club brought the regatta in-house in 2011 with the creation of its own weekend event, the Bayview One Design Regatta, locally referred to as the \u201cBOD.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event management team of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series (SWRS) is going all in to bolster Detroit\u2019s season-starting regatta, with Bayview hosting three nights of post-race parties and awards and working with other area yacht clubs for race committee resources on the water. Three race circles spread out across Lake St. Clair will accommodate nine one-design classes (J\/111, J\/120, J\/70, J\/35, Tartan 10, Santana 35, Melges 24, Melges 15, Cal 25) and one ORC fleet for buoy racing. Nearly 30 ORC and PHRF distance-race entries will sail long courses over the weekend, with many of these teams honing skills and sails for this summer\u2019s monumental 100th running of the Bayview to Mackinac Race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"J-111 <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The J\/111 fleet is one of the emergent one-design classes on Lake St. Clair. <\/span>\n Martin Chumiecki<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

The J\/111 fleet, with seven entries at press time, is considered the grand-prix set of the regatta, and longtime local racer and class champion Ed Kriese, says he\u2019s looking forward to mixing it with top-level visiting teams from Cleveland, especially Jeff Davis\u2019 Shamrock<\/em>, the benchmark team of the class these days. \u201cWe will be tuning with them,\u201d Kriese says. \u201cOur challenge is to be as fast as them, and it\u2019s going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In preparing for the task ahead, Kriese\u2019s team on Wildcat <\/em>has been tutored by professional sailor and coach, Wally Cross<\/a>, who\u2019s name comes up often round the lakefront. He has a reputation for turning upstart teams into winning programs. With Cross onboard Wildcat<\/em> in 2023, Kriese says, they were the team to beat, but this time, Cross is onboard Shamrock<\/em> so they have their work cut out for them. Still, Kriese is excited to see\u2014and be part of\u2014the Detroit sailing scene\u2019s turnaround and expects a renewed enthusiasm for the regatta with Bayview\u2019s partnership with the Regatta Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Ted <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Overall winners from the 2009 Sperry Top-Sider <\/span>\n Sailing World Archives<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

\u201cDetroit sailing is definitely stronger today than it was a couple of years ago,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople are psyched that Helly is here as a sponsor and bringing the good schwag. The more focused teams like ours won\u2019t be pounding the drinks like we used to, but we\u2019ll cut loose on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resurgent cupiditas<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series returns to Detroit as the city and the local sailing scene is on the rise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":77704,"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":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_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_targeting":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true,"sponsored_url":"","social_share":true,"alternate_title_newsletter":"","alternate_content_newsletter":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[181,2935],"class_list":["post-77758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regatta-series","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series","tag-helly-hansen-sailing-world-regatta-series-detroit"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77758","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}