Thanks to Derek Stow for his account of the action;

The Annual Small Boat Regatta at Massapoag YC in Sharon MA has always been one of my favorite sailing events ever since I raced in the First Annual in 2008. It is held on a Saturday in early summer and has a casual, friendly, fun atmosphere along with excellent race management, and superb on-shore hospitality.

Back in 2008 it was only for Lasers and Sunfish. In 2015, RS Aeros were added. It was in fact the first RS Aero regatta ever on the east coast of North America, and it still holds the record for the largest fleet of Aeros at a one day regatta in North America (with 19 Aeros in 2018.)

It was good to see old friends arriving at the club as we enjoyed the magnificent breakfast and met old friends we hadn’t seen since before the Great Lockdown of 2020. What were the formalities? Elbow bump? Fist bump? In the end we were all so pleased to see our sailing friends again that we went straight to hearty handshakes and brotherly bear hugs.

Winds after breakfast were a little too light for good racing so, at around 10:30am, our Principal Race Officer, Greg Kampf, announced that lunch would be served in five minutes and that after that we would go on the water (thereby avoiding the need to have the lunch break when winds might be honking.) So I tucked into a tuna roll and a chicken roll (there were lots of other choices) and potato salad and a bag of chips etc. etc. after which we all rigged up and sailed out to the course.

The wind picked up to a cheeky yet lethargic teaser from the north and we were off. All of us were in 9 rigs (of course) except for the two lightest sailors who were in 7 rigs. I was looking good for a while as I followed the recently crowned 2021 North American RS Aero Champion, Marc Jacobi, up the first beat but then I lost my way and sailed into a hole in the wind. I was somewhat overwhelmed to be sailing my first regatta in about 16 months but I managed to navigate a course around the outer trapezoid course in the middle of the fleet and didn’t hit any other boats or any racing marks so that was all good. The most exciting part of the race was when we caught up with the Sunfish fleet rounding the leeward mark. Somehow we all extricated ourselves from the tangled mess without bumping each other or exchanging any harsh words. Sunfish sailors are such nice people. (Well, most of them are.)

 

Marc Jacobi crossed the finish line first but, thanks to the magic of the Portsmouth handicap system, the annoyingly quick Phil Myerson was actually the winner of the race, with Marc in second place, and the persistently swift Sally Sharp in third. Well, at least that would have been the results if not for the fact that the first boat crossed the line after the time limit for the race had expired so that race didn’t count. Sad!

By now the sun had come out and it was getting seriously hot, so I removed one layer of clothing and drank a couple of gallons of sports drink before the start of the second race. This race was a shorter course with only one circuit of the trapezoid before the finish. 

Things were going along swimmingly (not literally) as I cruised the first two legs of the course with the usual mid-fleet suspects. For some reason the whole group arrived at the second mark more or less simultaneously. As we exchanged the usual polite pleasantries. “After you Eric,” and “No, I insist, after you Sally,” I somehow find myself rounding the mark on the inside. As I started fantasizing about coming out of the melee ahead of everyone else, my boat decided to touch the mark. Don’t you hate it when that happens? In spite of what everyone says there really must be a current on this lake.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, by the time I got clear of the other boats and had done a 360, I had lost about 6 places and was almost last by the time I reached the finish line. I was surprised to arrive there with Ralph Kinder, the leading light in the Bristol YC fleet in Rhode Island. Ralph was heeling his boat at about 80 degrees and shouting something about, “Can you see? There’s fluff coming out of my bottom!” Ralph was so preoccupied with his bottom fluff that he let me cross the finish line ahead of him, so I wouldn’t actually be last. Thanks Ralph! What a guy!
Meanwhile at the front of the fleet, Marc Jacobi had been leading the fleet around the last leeward mark but had then decided to start sailing another beat instead of heading down the short reach to the finish line. That gave renowned sailing journalist from Vermont, Dave Powlison, the opportunity to cross the line first and win the race, followed by Marc. In third place was my son Chris Stow sailing RS Aero 1421 which seems to be a much faster boat than it was when I used to sail it.

Fourth was Eric Aker who says he’s more engineer than sailor. You should check out his RS Aero some time; I don’t know how he manages to use all the sharpie lines, tape markers, home made wind indicators, and random electronic devices doing mysterious things (all of which are apparently perfectly class legal) but they seem to work for him.

 

Fifth was the aforementioned Phil Myerson and, as that turned out to be the last race of the day, the top 5 in that race were also the top 5 in the regatta and they took home magnificent trophies and well-deserved cash awards.

 

Back at the clubhouse we enjoyed another huge meal, with burgers and hot dogs and all the trimmings, and told each other tall tales. Marc Jacobi boasted of the vast amounts of food he used to consume when he was training for the Olympics, while Gary Orkney and Sally Sharp held us spellbound with the tale of their recent whitewater rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. It sounded almost as much fun as an RS Aero Regatta at Massapoag YC, but a hell of a lot more dangerous.

Thanks to Diane Kampf for organizing all the shore-based activities of the regatta, and to her husband Greg Kampf for leading the race management team. It wasn’t the windiest day we have ever had for a regatta at MYC but, everybody still had fun.

And a special thanks to all of our visitors from Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York and Vermont. We appreciate you for making the trek to our regatta which would never have earned the title of “America’s favorite one day RS Aero regatta” without support from folk like you.

Photo shows Derek Stow blasting through the ripples, followed by Chris Stow, Boris Mezhibovskiy, Eric Aker and Sally Sharp.