Marblehead Team Race
Under sunny skis, mild temps, and mostly great breeze the first stop of the 2014 Sail1Design US Team Racing Grand Prix took place this weekend in Marblehead, MA. The Host club, Eastern, was badly burned in a 3 alarm fire just 8 days prior but with the firm commitment to sailing by the club superiors the event went on mostly as planned.
6 Highly competitive teams hit the water Saturday morning in a building southerly which was quickly replaced by a stubborn northerly which was again replaced by the true south-easterly sea breeze. Defending Champs, Bristol Pistols, came out firing with a near perfect scoreline in the rounds completed Saturday followed closely by a couple other teams all within a win of each other and still only 3 wins behind the pistols. Bostspeed and crisp boathandling, especially downwind, were key in the 5-8 knot seabreeze and heavy chop, fairly typical Marblehead summer conditions. With 6 teams and fairly steady wind, all competitors were back on land and socializing before 5pm after sailing about 12 races each.
After racing, Eastern Yacht Club delivered on its promise of food and beer. The plan had been for a BBQ and some sort of keg but with the club closed, badly burned and water damaged, pizza delivery and light canned beer was served on the still beautiful, front lawn. It was refreshing, and a real positive in light of the bad situation, to have such a fun, informal, low-key gathering at a club like Eastern. We really had the whole club to ourselves. A couple daring competitors took a trip through the club to inspect the damage only to be kicked-out by the security guard (they turned the wrong way looking for the bathroom). At least some things never chance in the V15 class.
After a night on the town, competitors hit the water mid Sunday morning to a building seabreeze. Since it filled early and didn’t compete with a northerly, most of the day was sailed in champaign team racing conditions of 8-10 knots, perfect for the V15. My team, the Tannery Loungers, a historically Stork family and friends team came out firing. Sailing for us was myself and Coco Solsvig, Alden Reid and Andrew “Sharkey” Sneider, and of course John Stork and Ceila Johnson. We sailed the Pistols 2 more times on Sunday, coming out with 2 VERY CLOSE wins where the lead switched no less then 3-4 times each race. Both the Pistols and Loungers were challenged by the eventual 3rd place team, Corinthian Yacht Club. On there team was Freshmen Yale prodigy Ian Barrows and College Sportsman of the year Sam Madden, Even Cooke and Andi Bailey, Will Baily and Katia DaSilva. Other teams such as a strong team of Wianno YC instructors and a Marblehead local team took wins off all 3 of the top teams and a lose to them was ultimately the difference between the Pistols beating the Loungers by 1 win. In 6th place was a great team of young college sailors who looked to improve every race and certainly got a lot better, challenging the top teams by the end of the event.
Team racing, or really any sailing event, is not possible without dedicated volunteers who believe in the cause and want to be out there. Big thanks goes to 2 of the most active sailing supporters in Marblehead, Greg Wilkinson and Susie Sneider. Also all the other volunteers and of course the Eastern Yacht Club, for keeping this event intact despite a near total disaster at the club.
Although the V15 class has seen a drastic decline in numbers over the past 5 years team racing is still going strong. RITRA provided colored jibs for this event and will do so for the next 2 events at New York Yacht Club (July 26-27) and BBR Team Race (August 2-3). RITRA.org is also your source for charter boats for both these great events. Please register as far in advance as possible. They are going to be professionally run by yacht clubs who spend a lot of time and money planning and need to know what to expect more then just a day in advance. You can find links to register at V15.org along with information on other great events. If you need a charter boat, reserve one at ritra.org because they do sell-out. If all else fails, post to Vanguard 15 Class Association on facebook and someone will try and help you out. You can also contact local fleets for boats to borrow, info on V15.org.
http://www.easternyc.org/uploaded_files/2014mheadtrfinal1_bhr6ab.pdf
The Bristol Pistols with their trophy mugs! Congrats to Ben Spiller, Anna Spiller, Mark Dineen, Abby Preston, Matt Allan, and Wendy Reuss.
marblehead team race results
