July 2022

I confess that on the first truly summer-like weekend of 2022, a couple of weeks ago from when you are reading this, I found myself totally uninspired to write. I was very much more inspired to be on the water, or playing tennis or golf with my son, or eating and drinking outside or playing Canadian doubles with the now permanent badminton set in the backyard. Even cleaning the disaster of a garage ranked much higher than…

The 45th Around Long Island Regatta is scheduled to start in New York Harbor on Thursday, July 28. The race is managed and hosted by the Sea Cliff Yacht Club in Sea Cliff, NY.   First run in 1977, the “ALIR” covers a 207 nautical mile course combining ocean, harbor and open sound racing. The race’s 10+ divisions include sailboats 24 feet or longer and sailors at all levels who typically finish in one to three days….

The Klein Cup Regatta will take place at Steelpointe Harbor in Bridgeport, CT on Friday, September 30, Saturday, October 1 and Sunday, October 2. This inaugural event is the first 12 Metre match regatta in Connecticut in 37 years. The competing yachts are all former entrants in the Louis Vuitton Cup or the America’s Cup. The public is invited to enjoy racing each day from sightseeing boats, as well as pre- and post-racing family activities on the dock. After…

The Connecticut Marine Trades Association supports far more of our waterfront activities than most boaters realize. When Connecticut boaters think of the CMTA (if they ever do think about the CMTA), they typically think of yacht brokers, marinas and the specialized tradespeople who support their boats. But the CMTA is much, much more than that. We asked Jeff Freidag, Waterfront Manager at Riverside Yacht Club in Greenwich, CT and a CMTA Board Member, about his take. “For…

After being thwarted in 2020 and 2021, our friends at the Storm Trysail Club were finally able to run their May distance race in classic spring conditions. During the virtual weather briefing the night before the start, STC Commodore Ed Cesare said, “Welcome to the third annual 75th Block Island Race. Here’s hoping third time’s a charm.” Seventy-seven boats started the race on Friday, May 27 off Stamford, CT, with most of the fleet opting for the 186nm Block Island…

Our friends at Oakcliff Sailing in Oyster Bay, NY have taken another large step in “Building American Leaders Through Sailing.” On Friday, May 27 at 1400h, 70 sailors from Oakcliff were aboard five of the 86 boats competing in the Storm Trysail Club’s 75th Block Island Race. Amongst the race’s largest fleet in over a decade were eleven young women of Team Bitter End, sailing Oakcliff Farr 40 Blue. For Team Bitter End, the Block Island Race…

By Chuck Gilchrest   The 2022 New England distance racing season kicked off in earnest as the New Bedford Yacht Club’s annual 109nm Whalers’ Race ran in ideal late spring conditions. After an hour-long delay to allow the breeze to build, the fleet left Padanaram Harbor in Dartmouth, MA in a light southerly as the start gun sounded at noon Saturday, June 4. Seventeen boats in five classes headed towards the Elizabeth Islands and a rounding mark…

By Phil Dickey, MD, Skipper, Flying Lady Sam Wetherill, a founding member of the Cruising Club of America and early advocate of ocean racing, would have been pleased with the wind and sea conditions that prevailed during Essex Yacht Club’s 70th running of the race created to honor him. Two years ago, the race received a reconfiguration, which provides a longer (140nm) and more challenging open ocean race, which is especially suitable as a warmup to the Newport Bermuda…

By Nick Bowen   The Twenty Hundred Club opened their season on Saturday, May 22 with the third annual “Bridge Fiasco” Race. The rules are simple: Start the race just south of Prudence Island and sail under each of the three Narragansett Bay bridges – the Newport Bridge, the Jamestown Bridge and the Mt. Hope Bridge – in any order The course is 27.8nm long and the format of the race is pursuit style, which means your…

Olympic hopefuls training at Sail Newport this summer One of the many aspects, of a depth unfathomable, of living in Newport, Rhode Island is the breadth and depth of the sailing that happens here. At the end of the high school sailing season last May, I noticed an assembly of Nacra 17 catamarans, one of the recent additions to the Olympic sailing roster, in the dinghy lot at Sail Newport. The fact there was a RIB whizzing…