Annapolis Fall Regatta: New Date, New Rule

Annapolis, MD (June 4, 2015) – The Storm Trysail Club Chesapeake Station and Eastport Yacht Club will hold the 2015 edition of the Annapolis Fall Regatta on Friday-Sunday, October 23-25, 2015. The event invites entries from all eligible big-boat one-design classes, and entries racing under HPR, IRC and ORC Club handicap systems.

“We have found renewed interest in racing here in Annapolis at this time of year, because the weather conditions are usually superb,” says Dick Neville, regatta chairman from the Storm Trysail Club. “For the last two years we had this event one week later, and had to finish one day early for Hurricane Sandy, then we had gale-force conditions for two days last year. A week earlier will give us longer days to enjoy good races, more moderate temperatures and weather, and more time for visiting boats to move south for their winter season.”

In addition to HPR and IRC, which had previously been used at the Annapolis Fall Regatta, the event will this year offer ORC, a popular rule in Europe but new to the USA. The 2015 ORC World Championship, sanctioned by ISAF as the offshore world championship, sold out with 105 entries for the event on June 27-July 4 in Barcelona, Spain.

Neville says that use of ORC Club ratings will give more options for scoring in the classes not racing in HPR or IRC. “There is a diverse range of boat types in this class, and with the ORC rating options we can more fairly score them in a variety courses and conditions. This will make for more fair racing, and with the certificates freely available online we decided to give this a try this year.”

A popular feature for the Annapolis Fall Regatta has been in its innovative format, where the first day typically features a coastal race tour of the mid-Chesapeake, with a mid-race scoring gate so that two races can be scored in one long race. The remaining two days will offer conventional windward-leeward courses, but sometimes with a twist: the Harry Anderson course option adds both broad and tight reaching legs into the course layout, challenging crews with an additional set of boat handling skills not normally found in conventional inshore courses.

Ken Comerford of North Point Yacht Sales, local dealers for J/Boats, Alerions, Dufours as well as a brokerage for racing yachts, endorses the event as “the perfect end-of-season finale for our friends and customers. The emphasis is on having fun and fair racing, and we thing the format and timing is perfect for the local fleet members who want one last competitive regatta before the weather turns cold.”

Local-based teams agree. “This is one we really look forward to,” says Geoff Ewenson, who with wife Mary entered the C&C 30 Swedish Fish in last year’s event. “Its nice to have a strong field of competition come into our town to have great fun and great racing.”

And for traveling teams, Billy Liberty on the Mills 43 Cool Breeze based in New England says “We like Annapolis, and would really like to come back again this year. The offering of ORC is interesting to us, we would like to give this a try.”

“This is one of our favorite regattas of the year,” says Steve Benjamin, co-owner with his wife Heidi of the Carkeek 40 Spookie, also from New England. “The time of year is great, the weather is usually excellent, the race management is first-class, and we just have a great time in Annapolis. Its definitely worth the trip.”

Event details: www.yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=1448

Questions: Regatta Chairman Dick Neville, rneville@innovprop.com