High winds terrorize Annapolis Fall Regatta

Annapolis, MD (November 2, 2014) – Near gale force winds in the Chesapeake forced race managers at the Storm Trysail Club to abandon any further racing races in the last two days of the three-day Annapolis Fall Regatta held over October 31-November 2nd, with winners determined from results of the first day only of buoy racing. Conditions on this first day were a comparatively tame 9-10 knots of breeze.

In the HPR Class 1, Steve and Heidi Benjamin raced the US Merchant Marine Academy’s TP 52 ICE FIRE to victory, having assembled a team from their Carkeek HPR 40 Spookie that suffered a rig loss in mid-September. Runner-up in the class was the US Naval Academy’s TP 52 CONSTELLATION, led by skipper Josh Forgacs.

In HPR Class 2, Ian Gordon led the Farr 280 CHESSIE RACING to victory over two new C&C 30’s – Mary Ewenson’s SWEDISH FISH and Max Buerman’s SALT – and Daily Tipton’s modified 1D35 BLOFISH. Racing was so tight in this class that Ewenson and Buerman tied in corrected time after racing 45 minutes among the diverse angles of the Harry Anderson course in Race 3.

In the IRC Class, Bill Sweetser’s J/109 Rush defeated four other entries, with runner-up Cool Breeze, John Cooper’s custom Mills 43, unable to get far enough ahead to save her time, and the elapsed time leader, Greg Robinson’s new ES 44 unable also to get far enough ahead to correct over her smaller rivals.

In the Triple Number Plus 1 division, it was Paul Fenn’s new Sun Fast 2600 Invictus who managed to stay within her time allowance to defeat her faster-rated runner-up rival Velocity, Martin Roesch’s J/111, and Rush winning in the Triple Number Plus 2 division by only a slightly greater margin than when scored in IRC.

“We were looking forward to offering everyone a 30-mile distance race around the mid-Bay,” said PRO Dick Neville of the Storm Trysail Club,” but with the falling temperatures and the extreme wind gusts the conditions were just too dangerous to send out the fleet. We thank everyone for being patient and understanding our decision in these circumstances.”

Event website – Photos