August 2018

On Saturday, August 18, 2018 the Atlantic Highlands Yacht Club in Atlantic Highlands, NJ will host the 14th Annual Ms. Race, a charity race created to benefit and raise awareness for 180 Turning Lives Around (180nj.org), a Monmouth County-based private, non-profit organization dedicated to ending domestic violence and sexual assault in the community.

One of the world’s finest marine artists, Russ Kramer creates paintings of great moments in yachting history that provide a remarkable sense of “being there.”

The 2018 Lightning Youth World Champions are (l – r) Jeff Hayden, Brian Hayes, Jr. and Meredith Ryan.

The inaugural reboot of the ‘off-year’ Block Island Race Week, co-hosted by Duck Island Yacht Club (Westbrook, CT) and Block Island Yacht Club June 17 – 22, is in the books.

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m an O’Day Mariner fanatic. I have owned my 1970, 19-foot Mariner Orion, hull #1922, since 2007 and have held three different positions on the Mariner Class Association Executive Board including President (twice). I have a website for my own boat and have organized fleet and national rendezvous since 2009.

Captain Henry E. Marx, Master Mariner and founder of Landfall in Stamford, CT, crossed the bar on June 28, 2018. A lifelong mariner, Capt. Marx saw service in the U.S. Navy and the Norwegian Merchant Marine, and delivered yachts along the East and West Coasts for over 20 years. He acquired Landfall Navigation, the marine navigation and safety equipment chandlery, in 1982.

Next aboard was Kelsey, to inspect her work and over whose shoulder was Robert Lacovara, the head Composites instructor at IYRS who, after a few minutes inspection pronounced the work as A+. As the gathering dispersed, I was chatting with Jon about a few things and remarked on the boat’s name. I could not figure out the connection. “How appropriate,” I thought, when he said he’d named the boat Kate in honor of Kate Wilson.

The 51st running of the Newport Bermuda Race was a slow but strategically challenging race. Of the 169 boats that started in Newport, RI on Friday, June 15, 166 completed the 635-mile race in two to six days’ time (there were three retirements). After making very slow progress in the middle of the racecourse in light to non-existent winds, most of the fleet finished quickly on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

Twenty-eighteen marked the first year multihulls were invited to compete in the Newport Bermuda Race, and we were thrilled to take part with Jason Carroll’s Gunboat 62 Elvis. Elvis has been much modified from original, and now sports a 28-meter rotating mast, external tillers and deep asymmetric daggerboards, all of which puts a bit of spring in her step, especially in lighter air.

Hailing from Southeastern Connecticut, the MudRatz Offshore Team claimed the Stephens Brothers Youth Division Trophy (and the Alfred E. Loomis Trophy as the winners of the 14-boat Class 5 of the St. David’s Lighthouse Division) in the 51st Newport Bermuda Race. To learn more, log onto MudRatz.org.