New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta

I am doing something a little out of the box for me this weekend. I am serving as tactician to Glenn Darden on his New York 42 in the New York Yacht Club Annual regatta being held in Newport, Rhode Island.

Summertime in Newport seems to be the center of the sailing universe on the east coast. The New York Yacht Club resides in a historic mansion overlooking Narragansett Bay and is one of the most historic and prestigious yacht clubs in the world.

A few years ago, the Club decided to pick a boat that would become the "one-design" keel boat of choice for members who desired to race one-design. The club settled in on a design that was specially designed for their needs and the Swan 42 was born. The boat is sailed by 10 crew and has a very large main sail, relatively small jibs and a huge asymmetric spinnaker. The mast butt sits on a hydraulic jack and the rig tension is adjustable by jacking the mast up and down.

The boats are very evenly matched and the racing is very, very tight and competitive. The rules only allow one "professional" to be on the boat while racing and it is typical that the "pro" is the speed guy who is in charge of keeping the boat moving fast at all times. The helmsman must focus on sailing to the predetermined speed numbers for each wind condition. If the helmsman tries to point a bit too high, the speed quickly falls below the numbers and the lift generated by the keel begins to suffer. It seems very important to keep the boat always moving fast.

Starting these boats can be very challenging because you can't afford to stop the boat on the line to create a hole or to slow down. Once the boat stops, it takes almost a minute to get it back up to speed. The trick seems to be to make a long starboard tack to the line and just keep the boat moving and not worry quite as much as where you start on the line. If the boat is moving well at the start, everything will be okay. Coming in from below the line, trimmed in and rolling seems to be the best approach.

We sailed in a one day regatta on Friday for just the NY 42's. We only ended up getting one race in due to dying breeze. We had a not so great start, got forced to tack right, sailed for about a minute, lee-bowed a starboard tack boat, got a 40 degree shift to the right and laid the windward mark. We led the race down the run which was now a reach and on the next beat, thought we were doing the right thing by playing a shift or two but the wind shifted another 30 degrees to the right and we were passed by the 2nd and 3rd place boats who got lifted out above us and finished 3rd in the race. I learned a few valuable lessons in this race. Number one...save your tacks. Don't tack unless you have a very good reason. The boats just lose to much when you tack in relatively air. Number two...in coastal conditions, and in unsettled wind.....when the wind starts to swing a certain direction, it can sometimes just keep going. It is important to cover pretty aggressively in these conditions.

The New York Yacht Club annual regatta started Saturday and we had very light wind all of the way out to the starting area. Wallowing around with a big swell and no wind put me on the verge of hanging off the back of the boat and losing my breakfast but I was able to avoid the humiliation. Eventually, the wind filled and once we were sailing, I was fine.

We had a very good day in challenging conditions. We started conservatively but with good speed and we were able to pick the side we felt was better and ended the day with a 1-3-4 which puts us 6 points into the lead.

This is incredibly tight racing against some really good sailors. It is kind of cool matching wits with Gary Jobson, Steve Benjamin, Terry McLaughlin, Wally Cross....just to name a few....some of the more famous sailors in the game. Glenn did a great job of keeping the boat moving and the crew he has assembled is really talented, incredibly close-nit and friendly.

It looks like we have some bad weather rolling in this morning with some rain and not a lot of wind. Hopefully we will get a race or two off today and preserve or extend our lead. I will post some pictures of Newport when I get back.