WindCheck Magazine Healthy! - WindCheck Magazine

I did two back-to-back one-design keelboat events in September. The first was the Sonar World Championship at Noroton Yacht Club in Darien, CT and the second was the 60th Shields Nationals at Larchmont Yacht Club in Larchmont, NY. There were definitely some pros and cons observed regarding the health of the sport.

Team Racing seems to rule. At both clubs, these events were obviously for the select few who still enjoy longer course racing where speed and tactics are the predominant skills needed. Team racers and team racing events on the other hand seem to abound, with evening practices and regattas for everyone from high school kids to grandmasters on the schedule.

The event management shoreside was outstanding at both events. Creative dinners, flowing kegs, plenty of rum and great food, class meetings, and generally really fun parties. There was very good race management in classically challenging fall conditions (0-20… often during the same race! Of course, both events were on Long Island Sound so, yeah, just normal.)

The competition distinctly divided the top two from the rest of the fleet in both events. And that is where I was frankly sort of melancholy about the state of one-design racing. On the one hand, the Sonar Class with looser rules, enabled good sailors to “jump in” and sail the event with minimal prior fleet participation. This was reflected in their results in that time in the boat always pays, no matter how skilled. In the Shields Class where they have pretty strict participation rules governing boats and the sails used in the championship, the results were much tighter, but the two leaders still did not have to sail the last race.

My melancholy comes from this lack of depth. The fleets were 31 for the Sonars and 22 for the Shields. I think the lament that there are too many classes has finally and truly come home to roost. There are a world of other thoughts on this like length of course (although in this day and age, evening one-design sailing in Newport, for example, is short and tight and pretty healthy, so that’s no excuse). Then there is the “old designs are no fun, uncomfortable, not quick enough” laments. Again, one look at some of the new fiberglass rolling out does not fill you with confidence of those solutions. (I won’t name names but a ride on a launch or a walk through the boat park is all you need.)