Page 10. MAINE COASTAL NEWS September 2015


Waterfront News TRANSATLANTIC RACE 2015 NOW COMPLETE


If the Transatlantic Race 2015 were


easy, to borrow a popular expression, it wouldn’t be nearly as worthwhile an ex- perience. So the energy level was high last Friday, July 24, as competitors, race offi cials and dignitaries gathered at the Royal Yacht Squadron’s Castle, in Cowes, England, to honor the winners, recount a few sea stories and celebrate the shared experience of rac- ing across one of the planet’s least hospitable bodies of water. A nearly 50 percent increase in en-


tries from 2011, the last time this race was run, shows that interest in long-distance blue-water racing remains high. The six starters that failed to fi nish due to a variety of technical issues are an equally strong indication that despite modern materials, construction techniques and communication technology, racing from Newport, RI to The Lizard off the southwestern tip of England isn’t getting any easier.


“The weather was the dominant feature of the race,” said Event Co-Chair George David, of the New York Yacht Club, who also raced in the event onboard his Rambler 88. “For the [Start 2] starters, they had great wind the whole way across, in some cases more wind than people wanted.” Bryon Ehrhart’s Reichel/Pugh 63


Lucky had the boat speed and crew to take best advantage of the favorable conditions afforded the 20 boats in the second of three starts, a feature of this race designed to group the fi nishers a little more closely together. Blasting away from Newport in a stiff southwesterly breeze, Ehrhart and his team rarely strayed too far from the rhumb line. The 100-year-old schooner Mariette of 1915 and the 100-foot super maxi Nomad IV were both contenders to be the fi rst boat across the fi nish line, but Lucky held them off, putting down a time that, once corrected for handicap, would prove impossible to beat.


“The whole crew worked so well


together,” said Ehrhart, a Chicagoan who previously had success with a 52-foot boat of the same name. “I grew up as a golfer. This is, in my view, one that we prepared a lifetime for; this is like the Masters. It’s humbling to have such a great crew perform as high as they did to get to this spot.”


to Lloyd Thornburg’s 70-foot trimaran Phaedo3


Overall elapsed time honors went (7d:2h:4m:5s) and Jim Clark


and Kristy Hinze-Clark’s Comanche (7d:11h:35m:11s), which was skippered by Ken Read during the race. Early in the race, a full day of fi ghting through drifting conditions put any hopes of a course record out of reach. But when the breeze did fi ll in, the four boats that comprised the fi nal start reveled in the conditions. Comanche set a new record by sailing 618.01 miles in a 24- hour period, becoming the fi rst monohull to break the 600-mile barrier.


“This was the 100-foot boat that Jim


Clark wanted: The fastest monohull in the world,” said skipper Ken Read. “Our top speeds were into the mid-30s a bunch of times. It is not like you are surfi ng down a wave, you just go…fast. You sail it heeled over, and it feels like you are right on the edge, but when you grab the wheel you are in control. The boat is a phenomenal piece of machinery.” The fi nal two fi nishers were Dizzy, a


48-year-old yawl that started with the fi rst group and completed the longest crossing in the race at just more than 20 days, and Persevere, a four-year-old sloop that started with the second group, but turned around for a repair not long after the start and missed a crucial weather window. Both boats, howev- er, fi nished in high spirits and, not coinciden- tally, in time for the fi nal party. Among the crew on Persevere were 14-year-old Breana Rath, the race’s youngest participant, and Wasabi, the family cat. The next running of the Transatlantic Race is scheduled for the early summer of 2019. While the transatlantic course was one of the fi rst offshore courses to be contested—the fi rst race starting from New York in December of 1866—it never settled a regular schedule or a consistent group of organizing clubs until very recently. “The committee likes the idea of this


four-year sequence,” said David. “It seems about the right cadence to get enough boats interested and wishing to do it. The preferred format is to run this race collectively by the Royal Yacht Squadron, the New York Yacht Club, the Royal Ocean Racing Club and the Storm Trysail Club. It is a good format with four great clubs, and it seems like we have run a good race and everything works pretty well. I expect we’ll see that back in 2019.” Sponsors for the Transatlantic Race 2015 are Rolex, Newport Shipyard and Peters & May.


Podium Positions on Corrected Time: IRC Overall: 1. Lucky, 13d 11h 7m 41s 2. Outsider, 13d 16h 51m 51s 3. Mariette of 1915, 14d 8h 39m 48s IRC Class 1: 1. Rambler 88, 14d 11h 38m 10s


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Jim Clark and Kristy Hinze-Clark's COMANCHE sets a record.


2. Comanche, 14d 18h 40m 59s IRC Class 2: 1. Lucky, 13d 11h 7m 41s 2. Outsider, 13d 16h 51m 51s 3. Grey Power, 15d 17h 6m 29s IRC Class 3: 1. Snow Lion, 14d 21h 44m 0s 2. Maximizer, 15d 12h 59m 30s 3. Prospector, 15d 16h 39m 4s IRC Class 4: 1. Mariette of 1915, 14d 8h 39m 48s 2. Dorade, 14d 22h 12m 53s 3. Scarlet Oyster, 15d 2h 34m 18s Class 40: 1. Stella Nova, 10d 7h 11m 44s 2. Visit Brussels, 11d 3h 9m 0s


NEWPORT, R.I. — Cinderella’s second trip to the ball didn’t have a fairy tale ending. Last year, Newport Harbor Yacht Club took a circuitous route to winn ing the Morgan Cup, squeaking into the knock-out round after struggling in the round robin and be- coming just the third yacht club to win the coveted keelboat team racing regatta. This year, the Californian team once again made the fi nals, but was unable to overcome the team from the host New York Yacht Club, which won the Morgan Cup for the eighth time in 13 years. The regatta, offi cially called the New York Yacht Club Invitational Team Race Regatta for the Morgan Cup, is hosted each August out of the New York Yacht Club’s Harbour Court Clubhouse, and is one of the premiere keelboat team racing championships in the sport. With a slightly smaller fi eld than in pre- vious years and an enlarged fl eet of Sonars, the 10 competing teams were run through two full round robins during the fi rst two days of the regatta. New York Yacht Club’s fi rst team was one of three to fi nish the two round robins with 14 points. “Our results after the fi rst day didn’t re-


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fl ect how well we were going,” said NYYC team captain Pete Levesque. “We lost a few in the fi rst round robin through a variety of different manners. But we were happy to go undefeated on Day 2.” With the top four teams having sepa- rated themselves from the rest of the group, the decision was made to put that quartet into an elimination round, have a sail off for fi fth and sixth and send the bottom four teams home. In the semifi nals, Newport Harbor upset the team from England’s Royal Thames YC 3-2 while the New York Yacht Club team defeated Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club 3-1. In the showdown for fi fth place it was Larchmont Yacht Club beating a crew of collegiate all-stars, 3-1. The host team was dominant in the fi rst two races in the fi nals, winning each with a 1-2-3 combination (each team sails three boats in each race, with the lowest combined


3. Dragon, 11d 20h 12m 7s Cruising: 1. Lady B, 16d 22h 14m 46s 2. Zephyr, 17d 10h 35m 51s 3. Charisma, (still to fi nish) Classics: 1. Mariette of 1915, 14d 8h 39m 48s 2. Dorade, 14d 22h 12m 53s Open Class (MOCRA): 1. Paradox, 12d 7h 33m 33s 2. Phaedo3


, 13d 23h 12m 15s


Fastest multihull (elapsed time): Phaedo3 7d 2h 4m 5s


Fastest monohull (elapsed time): Comanche 7d 11h 35m 11s


New York Yacht Club Reclaims Morgan Cup


score winning the race). But the racing was far from easy. “We crossed the line in much more sta- ble combinations than we had at any other time during the races,” said Levesque. “We were winning or losing two or three times during each run. It was good, tight racing.” Newport Harbor clawed back with a win in Race 3 before the host team salt- ed away the victory with another strong performance in Race 4. Most teams races, especially at the high school and collegiate level, are run without spinnakers. But in the Morgan Cup, as in other keelboat team rac- ing competitions, spinnakers are used. This makes for some very exciting downwind racing and puts a premium on sail handling. The deciding race, in particular, featured furious maneuvering on the downwind leg. “Our downwind performance was an advantage for us today,” said Levesque (center, holding silver trophy, with the win- ning team and NYYC Vice Commodore Phil Lotz). “We had a practice weekend last weekend and the club championship a couple of weeks ago. It’s just lots of practice, knowing what’s possible and what’s going to be a mistake. It’s easy to think something’s possible when you’re starting it and then fi nd out otherwise.”


The winning New York Yacht Club team included: Pete Levesque (skipper/team captain), Clay Bischoff (skipper), Garrett Woodworth (skipper), Carolina Levesque, Alden Reid, J.R. Maxwell, John Edenbach, Joy MacDougall, James Allsopp, Sarah Callahan, Jeff Gladchun and Dale Harper. Final Standings


1. New York Yacht Club 1 (New York, NY) 2. Newport Harbor Yacht Club (Newport Beach, CA) 3. Royal Thames Yacht Club (London, England)


4. Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club (Oys- ter Bay, NY) 5. Larchmont Yacht Club (Larchmont, NY) 6. College All-Stars 7. Eastern Yacht Club (Marblehead, MA) 8. New York Yacht Club 2 (New York, NY)


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