Paul Cayard


Gibson Island Yacht Squadron on the Chesapeake in 1927 and Mrs Norris is seen preparing her Star Class yacht for an afternoon of racing – those fore-and-aft runner tracks will remain the standard in the class for another 50 years until Buddy Melges introduced his under-deck pulley system when he won the 1978 Worlds in San Francisco. Next year the Squadron will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Chesapeake Bay fleet. Bumped out of the Olympics, with such a heritage the Stars are doing just fine, thank you very much


Spanning generations


The Star Class recently held its 100th world championship with 85 teams from 13 nations. This was the third Star Class World Champion - ship hosted by the Eastern Yacht Club, in Marble - head, Massachusetts; the other two being in 1981 and 1997. With 12 entries under the age of 30, an important changing demographic


towards younger sailors bodes well for the future of the class. The first Star Class World Championship was hosted by Larchmont Yacht Club, in New York, in 1922. While Conner, Blackaller, Burnham, Knowles, Buchan, North,


Schoonmaker and Reynolds were born into the Star Class, names like Elvstrøm, Straulino, Mankin, Petterson, Melges, Grael, Percy, Scheidt, Rohart, Pepper, Melby, Negri and others came to the Star Class… moving from other classes to test themselves against the best. With fleets in 38 nations, the Star Class has always been and remains a collection of the world’s best sailors. Alongside a challenging 100th world championship, there was


a week-long celebration of the greatest one-design class in sailing. A book was produced, written by Carol Cronin, commemorating the first 100 world championships and the stories of its champions. A gala evening in which all the world champions in attendance were introduced was sponsored by longtime partner Bacardi. Malin Burnham, both the oldest living world champion as well as the youngest ever to win at the age of 17, made the trip from


San Diego at the age of 94 to speak to the class. His perspective was most interesting having been involved with the class since the mid-1940s. Malin and his world championship-winning crew Lowell North are the only two sailors to have won the world championship as both a skipper and a crew. In a nice tribute to the centenary, 65 of the competitors carried


sail numbers representing those 100 years. World champions who raced displayed the year they won, while others paid tribute to a relative who was a world champion and others represented key years such as 1922. Through many different ways the class was justly honoured for its place in our sport and its contribution. Out on the racetrack sentimentality was soon set aside and the


competition was as tough as ever throughout the fleet. Marblehead is something between a lake and the ocean. When the wind comes from the northwest-north it can be as shifty and random as a lake. Half of the races were held in these conditions but race 4 was con- ducted in 20-25kt of wind and a very steep sea. There is significant current as well, which needed to be tracked carefully for laylines on the long legs that the class still adheres to. Approximately 30 years ago the class used the traditional Gold


Cup course (triangle-sausage and so on) for every championship race. However, it was correctly determined that reaching in 10kt of wind is useless, nothing ever happens, so the class adopted windward-leeward courses which is what we use today… except for the rare exception. Star World Championship courses are


SEAHORSE 31


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VAN DER BORCH


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