A revived and rejuvenated PHRF New England Championship featured up to 25 boats on the starting line over two days with the Farr 40 HOOLIGAN owned by Nick Mercier and Pike Severance from Kittery Point Yacht Club taking the overall win of both the pursuit race on Friday and the windward leeward racing on Saturday. In an event that brought teams from Maine, New Hampshire, Boston, Nahant and Beverly, a pesky tidal current and very shifty, light air conditions were frustrating factors for all racers but were deemed an advantage for the overall winner.
During the final windward leeward leg on Saturday as the breeze died out, the Farr 40 HOOLIGAN and other boats were obliged to tack up to five or six times on a run which is not the norm. While negotiating an unstable, easterly wind direction and changeable currents, HOOLIGAN judged their final tack for the finish early to benefit from the tidal current taking them down to the finish line. This maneuver put the team in the best position to coast across the finish line first in Class A, while their first place in the Pursuit Race the day before gave them the overall win.
Because HOOLIGAN often competes in New Hampshire and Maine and battles the notorious Piscataqua River currents, they felt they received that extra boost from timing their maneuver to the best of their advantage.
“There so much current where we sail out of Kittery that I believe I saw an opportunity ahead of the other competitors to tack and it put us in the exact right spot to get the finish line first,” said Mercier.
On Saturday, Class B also featured extremely competitive racing with several lead changes. It came down to the wire with Jud Smith on board the Farr 44 AFRICA B-Squad winning the class overall by two seconds beating event organizer Bump Wilcox on his MAT 10.70 Turkish-design race boat FAWN LIEBOWITZ.
While the PHRF New England Championship was traditionally held in late August, and then eventually petered out altogether, this revival regatta may not have gotten the hoped-for winds, but sailors did get two beautiful late spring days of racing under their belts, which sets the tone for a summer of racing ahead.
“We did unfortunately get very light air, and the light air shifts were all over the place, so the wind indexes were very tough when it comes to maneuvers,” said Tom Linkas,
owner of the Farr 30 INDRA. INDRA had been going strong in the Pursuit Race on Friday when they encountered what sailors call a ‘hole’ with no wind.
“Our boat sails the angles very well and during the Pursuit Race we were fast and picked a nice line up to Newcomb’s Ledge. We passed most of the fleet. We only had four boats ahead of us and our boat performed well,” said INDRA teammate Pat Werner. The area around the finish line was problematic as the wind dropped off entirely. It was a slow drift to the finish for the fleet on both days.
Fleet numbers remain important to competitors in the PHRF fleets that sail around Massachusetts Bay which is what the presence of boats from the south shore, Boston, Nahant and Swampscott remain key.
According to Boston Yacht Club regatta chairwoman Julee Colella, “It was a great comeback regatta,” which was seconded by Bump Wilcox who added that We will do this again next year. We would have liked more boats to attend, and we intend to promote this year-round.”
Marblehead native and world champion sailor Jud Smith noted that, “It takes a few years to launch a regatta, and people were pleased with the format. There is a trend to have big regattas at the start of the sailing season. It is nice to have an event this time of year, and we have long wanted to have a bigger mid-June regatta here.”
