On to the racing

The reason we were all going to Newport was The New York Yacht Club Invitational Regatta. Five years ago The NYYC decided to put the sailor back in the sailboat race. Rather then have the race decided on an engineers table lets decide it on the water, the old fashion way.

They invited 20 clubs from around the world to compete in New York 42s in September 2009. If you would like further details on the participants just go to The NYYC web site. In 2009 NYYC won and we, The RCYC came second. In 2011 we won and this year we came back from a disastrous start to win again. Larchmont YC of New York came second and The Royal Thames from England were third.

AS I have already said The NYYC were terrific host and ran great races. The boats have been set up identically and have exactly the same equipment. The sails are used only for this event. We happen to have a member John Hele who is also a member of NYYC and owns a New York 42. This gives us an advantage, but I understand that several teams own their own 42.

On Thursday Trish and I went out on a beautiful Sabre 48. The owner was very gracious and we all had a great time watching three races. While waiting for the races to start he turned on something called Skyhook and we were locked into a position pointed into the on coming rollers left over from the night before.

On Saturday we drew America a 75 foot Trumpy built in 1965. It was owned by a Hotelier from Sag Harbor New York. The yacht came with a Captain and Mate, so during lunch all the owner had to do was pour the wine. It turned out that he was a wine expert for his hotel's wine list is about 114 pages long.

America

My sisters on the fore deck of America

The racing was great but hard to get on a camera or at least hard for me to capture. I have included a couple of photo and a video.

 While out on The Ocean you get to see many marvelous yachts below I have selected a small sample.