This coming weekend marks the 9th annual Storm Trysail Club Ted Hood Regatta taking place at the Eastern Yacht Club. The Ted Hood Regatta was established in 2017 by the Storm Trysail Club’s Marblehead Station to honor Marblehead’s famous sailmaker and 1974 America’s Cup winner Ted Hood.
The regatta this year will feature both an exciting one design event as the 2026 Finn Masters’ North America Championship will take place starting Friday, Aug. 14 with 21 Finns from around the United States and Canada attending. Then, starting Aug. 15, the regatta will include eight J105s competing and seven Performance Handicapped Racing Fleet (PHRF) boats. Racing wraps up on Sunday, Aug. 16.
“Sailor Luke Buxton has been instrumental in bringing the Finns to the Ted Hood Regatta this year,” said regatta director Clarke Smith. “The Finn sailors include 91-year-old sailor Gus Miller who has been sailing Finns since the 60s and just completed the Finn Gold Cup in Australia. Luke also brought the Star New England to the regatta two years ago.”
The Finn is a one-person dinghy that was designed in 1949 to be the ‘monotype’ dinghy at the 1952 Olympic Games. Its involvement with the Olympics ended after the 2020 Tokyo games but by then it had become the longest standing of any Olympic dinghy class. Its medalists have had an enormous impact on sailing including Peter Holmberg of the United States Virgin Islands, Sir Ben Ainslie of England and Sir Russell Coutts of New Zealand. In 2016, American Caleb Paine won a bronze medal in the Finn Class.
Finns are racing Friday to Sunday while the J/105’s and PHRF boats will be racing Saturday and Sunday on windward leeward courses. The Eastern Yacht Club will run the Finn Circle, and Corinthian Yacht Club will run the J/105 Circle and PHRF circle.
“We are very much looking forward to this year’s event,” said Smith. “We are grateful to the support of the yacht clubs and the town. We also could not do this without our sponsors.”
Ted Hood Regatta counts on its sponsors and that includes many Marblehead businesses including Rumson Rum, Living Swell, Zurn Yacht Design, Trident Marine Managers, MarkSetBot, Sudbury Boat Products, Ribcraft, Marblehead Boatyard Associates, Doyle Sailmaker and Marblehead Graphics.
