By Nick Bowen

The Twenty Hundred Club had their second race of the season on Saturday June 19.  The “Around Aquidneck” race starts just south of Hog Island near the Mount Hope Bridge, takes the sailors about 12 nautical miles (nm) south to buoy R2 at Brenton Reef. This mark is about 2 nm south of Castle Hill and there the boats turn east for a 5.5 nm run across Rhode Island Sound.  Then at the buoy G1 that marks Cormorant Reef they turn north and enter the Sakonnet River for a 9.1 nm run up the Sakonett River to the finish line just south of Gould Island before the Tiverton basin.  The total distance for the race is 27.7 nm.  

There were 18 boats that competed in three classes.  There were fifteen spinnaker boats and three cruising class boats.  We are still not up to the pre-pandemic level with 28 boats racing. 

The forecast for the day was southwest winds at 11-12 knots.  Low tide was at 8:45 AM which meant the fleet would have to fight the tide in the beat down to R2 at Brenton reef.  They would enjoy a favorable tide up the Sakonnet River.

A unique attribute of this race is that the starts are staggered by 15 minutes for each of the four classes.   Because we only had 5 boats registered for Cruising Class we ran a single cruising class and started those boats at 10:45AM. We then started Spinnaker B at 11:05 and finally Spinnaker A started at 11:20.  John Brady of Portsmouth was the designer of this race and legend has it that he set the staggered starts so all the boats would cluster near the finish line and he could always enjoy the view of dozens of colorful spinnakers sailing past his house that faces the Sakonett River.

The winds exceeded the forecast with winds in the range of 15-18 knots.  The story of the day were some large wind shifts in speed and direction seen at different times and places around the race course. David Schwartz, skipper of Mischief, reported winds diminishing to 8 knots from 240 degrees as he entered the Sakonnet and then part way up the river saw a shift to 18 knots from 180 degrees.  That shift gave Mischiefa huge advantage with his symmetric spinnaker and allowed him to power down the course and win line honors.  Right behind him where two J/109’s, Bill Kneller’s Vento Solare and Tom Sutton’s Leading Edge. After four and a half hours of racing Kneller was able to beat out Cotton by just over four minutes and take second place.

Tim Grimes, skipper of Zephyros, attributes his victory in Spinnaker B to being able to carry his reacher from R2 at Brenton Reef to the Sakonnet River and surfing down the rollers that were hitting the boats just aft of beam.   This was Grime’s second consecutive win in this race.

The clubs next races will be a destination race from Newport to Cuttyhunk Island on Saturday July 17, the Newport to Block Island Race on July 7, the Prince Henry Regatta on July 28 and the Around Prudence Race on September 25.  Interested sailors are encouraged to register at https://twentyhundredclub.org. 

Nick Bowen is the Commodore of the Twenty Hundred Club and races his Lyman-Morse e33 on Narragansett Bay.  He can be reached at commodore@twentyhundredclub.org.

<photo1 [AAR_2021_SpinBStart.jpg]: Spinnaker B Start.  Photo credit: David Schwartz> 

Spinnaker A Class (PHRF Base < 90)    

1. Mischief, David Schwartz          

2. Vento Solare, Bill Kneller         

3. Leading Edge, Tom Cotton

4. Falcon, Charles Stoddard

5. Bully Circus, Buster Pike

6. Salacia, Mark Nannini

7. Overproof, Tim Scalon

Spinnaker B Class (PHRF Base > 90)    

1. Zephyros, Timothy Grimes        

2. Blitz, Chris Tate

3. Spirit, EC Helme  

4. Odraccas, Chuck Saccardo

5. Solo Dream, Peter Vessella

6. Odyssey, David Brodsky & Alfred Van Liew    

7. epiphany, Nick Bowen   

8. Kestrel, Mark Franklin

Cruising I

1. Caneel, Chip Hawkins

2. Mystic, Christoper Borden         

3. Relentless, Robert Laska