HELLY HANSEN SAILING WORLD REGATTA SERIES: SUNDAY ANNAPOLIS RECAP

“Today, we had more shifts that we could take advantage of and very decent wind during the first race,” Irvin says. “We focused on getting in phase, powering the boat up and getting boatspeed.”

Jimmy Praley’s old coach from Tufts University would have been proud of his former Jumbo sailor heeding his advice enroute to winning the Viper 640 class. Praley, his tactician Austin Powers, and forward crew Max Vinocur, were 3 points out of the lead when the day’s first race got underway in a light easterly breeze. All day long, Coach Ken Legler must have been whispering in his ear: “Start where the others are not, tack, and win.”

With Legler’s sage advice imprinted in his mind, Praley and his teammates on Robot Flamingo made their move to the top of the scoresheet with a big win in the day’s first race. “The goal was to try and stay close to our closest competitor,” Praley says, “but once we put some points on them in the first race we decided it wasn’t worth the risk to do anything but sail our own race.”

“It was nearly impossible to be consistent this weekend, but we just did our best,” Praley says. “Fleet management was a big thing, and we were always optimizing our ability to get to the favored side of the course. Our biggest thing was to be as conservative as much as possible but not be afraid to take a flyer if we had to.”

Brad Julian and his team Yard Sail also capitalized on a strong Sunday finish. Yard Sailmoved into first place in the J/22 fleet after an intense weekend of back-and-forth lead changes. Starting the day 5 points behind Aden King’s Rhythmic Pumping, Julian and team closed the regatta with a 3-point lead, but it wasn’t easy.

TC Williams and his crew on the Alberg 30 Argo won their fleet for the sixth time at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series, narrowly beating the second-place Firestorm/Laughing Gull by 1 point, a victory decided in the final race. As this weekend’s top Alberg 30, Argo also earned the class’s coveted Maple Leaf Trophy, which has been awarded annually since 1965.

“We have great chemistry on board, my wife Elizabeth was trimming the jib and my son Austin was on board doing bow for the first time,” Williams says. “Keeping the boat moving through the current was crucial. We always went left on the start, went left downwind, but the shifts were there and you had to find a way to keep the boat moving when the wind went away.”

Newhouse’s team on Yonder, however, crawled across with a fifth, to give them the victory on account of winning the tiebreaker with Cate Mueller-Terhune’s second-placed Casting Couch.

“This weekend, we had to fight for every inch we could get,” says Jeremy Wilmot, the team’s tactician. “The light, shifty weather was not our strength—we are definitely a heavy air team, and we came to Annapolis to work on our light air.”

John and Mary Driver were the Wayfarer team, topping the fleet by 6 points after winning three of six races. “Our goal was to sail as well as we could,” says Mary Driver. “I was really afraid of trimming the spinnaker because I’m used to asymmetric sails so this was a little different, but I felt like after practice, it went very well.”

The Distance Race fleet was especially challenged with much longer racecourses that stretched across the Chesapeake Bay. Today, simply finishing was the order of the day, as it was on Saturday when only three of 11 entries completed the race before the time limit expired. Ben Capuco and his Aerodyne 38 Zuul won the ORC fleet, finishing second in both of its races. “Today was about redemption—we missed a 30-degree right shift on the weather leg but had great speed once we were off the wind,” Capuco says. “It was nice to be off the wind and having the right sails to win on the reach leg.”

While most standings were contested in the final races, there were a few teams that dominated their respective fleets over the weekend, including Matt Lalumiere’s Cash Money, which topped the Etchells fleet by winning four of its five races.

“We were in a very old boat that is hard to keep moving through the current, so keeping speed and communicating with each other as we were going through the gear changes, and making adjustments when we had to was super important,” says Mitch Powell, the team’s bowman. “We had some nice breeze and a square course, so there was great racing today.”

Mike Beasley and his teammates on the J/80 Black Sheep were the most dominant of the weekend, topping their fleet by a whopping 18 points after winning seven of eight races. “Tuning was key,” Beasley says. “We put a lot of time into boat setup and understanding what the demands were from the sails we had and what we were trying to achieve with upwind speed,” Beasley says. “Working as a team was a highlight of the weekend; we had a guy from the youth team. On Friday, he was a little ropey, but he was a machine today.”

Tune in for race videos and photo downloads on the Sailing World race website: www.sailingworld.com/regatta-series-annapolis.

OVERALL WINNERS OF THE HHSWRS ANNAPOLIS

Short Course/One Design
Alberg 30
1^st – Argo – T.C. Williams – 15 points
2nd – Firestorm/Laughing Gull – Raymond Bay – 16 points
3rd – Constance – Jonathan Bresler – 17 points
J/22
1^st – Yard Sail – Brad Julian – 26 points
2nd – Rhythmic Pumping – Aden King – 29 points
3rd – Hot Toddy – Jeffrey Todd – 37 points
Top J/22 Jr Team – AYC Tide – Mason Cook
Top Mixed Plus Team – Symmetry – Eric Johnson & Catherine Cotell
J/24
1st – Spaceman Spiff – Pete Kassel – 16 points
2nd – Rush Hour – Patrick Fitzgerald – 18 points
3rd – SISU – James Bonham – 25 points
Wayfarer
1st – Sirocco – John Driver – 10 points
2nd – Blew By You – Peggy Menzies – 16 points
3rd – Intrepid – Ann Marie Covington – 19 points
Recipient of the James Cooke Award – Ali Kishbaugh
Etchells
1st – Cash Money – Matt Lalumiere – 8 points
2nd – Marge – Jamie Carter – 14 points
3rd – Hat Trick – David Pryor – 17 points
J/30 East Coast Championship
1^st – Shamrock – Bruce Irvin – 7 points
2nd – Bebop – Bob Rutsch & Mike Costello – 11 points
3rd – Insatiable – Ronald Anderson – 25 points
Melges 15
1st – Whip and Dip – Bryan Stout – 16 points
2nd – BrewJax – Britton Steele – 18 points
3rd – N/A – Sara Morgan Watters – 19 points
Top Mixed Plus Team – Whip and Dip – Bryan Stout
Viper 640
1st – Robot Flamingo – Jimmy Praley – 20 points
2nd – Life of Riley – Martin Casey – 22 points
3rd – Brass Monkey – Jay Sterne & Jamie Fontanella – 30 points
J/70
1^st – Savasana – Doug Newhouse – 29 points
2nd – Casting Couch – Cate Muller-Terhune – 29 points
3rd – Savasana – Brian Keane – 34 points
Top Mixed Plus Team – Norboy – Laura Sigmond
Top J/70 Corinthian – FM – Tod Sackett
J/80
1^st – Black Sheep – Mike Beasley – 10 points
2nd – Kopp-Out – Thomas and Jennifer Kopp – 28 points
3rd – Meltemi – Mike Hobson – 29 points
Top Mixed Plus Team – Stacked Deck – Ramzi Bannura
J/105
1^st – Patriot – Ray Wulff – 19 points
2nd – Good Trade – Peter Bowe – 28 points
3rd – Jester – High Bethell – 36 points
Top Mixed Plus Team – Firebrand – Jon Slabaugh

Distance Race
ORC
1^st – ZUUL – Benedict Capuco – 4 points
2nd – Aunt Jean – James Sagerholm/AJ Syndicate – 5 points
3rd – Wild Thing – J/88 – Ben Jatlow – 6 points
PHRF
1^st – Cloud Nine – Paul Kaladas – 1 point
2nd – Whirlwind – Gary Jobson – 3 points

Full Results: www.sailingworld.com/regatta-series-annapolis