2024 Rescue Regatta
The Rescue Regatta is a one day regatta, party and charity benefit for the Middlesex County Rescue Squad. There’s racing for boats from 20 feet and up and a band and party Saturday night at the Deltaville Maritime Museum.
On the day of the race storms blanketed the area in the morning and start to clear just as we were leaving the dock. By the time the racers were starting there was even some blue sky poking out and the wind was 6-9 out of the south.
The format of this race is a progressive start so each boat gets its own start time and everyone sails the same course to the finish with the faster boats with lower handicaps starting last. First to finish wins. We were sailing the 2nd fastest and lowest rated boat in the fleet – the J99 Battle Rhythm. Only the J109 Afterthought was faster than us and started behind us. So in order for us to win, we’d have to pass every other boat in the fleet and we started 35 minutes behind the slowest boats. The course was a V with a close reach out of the mouth of the Piankatank into the Chesapeake Bay and a broad raeach back up into the mouth of the Rappahannock.
Aboard Battle Rhythm were Todd, Kevin, Jennifer V, Holly and myself. As we crossed the starting line at a our starting time we nailed the timing and quickly put up the A1 and settled into a rhythm sailing as high as we could to fetch the mark ~4 miles away. Afterthought was our closest competitor who started shortly behind us and slowly worked above us and started catching up to us. We quickly rolled past Tradition who started just before us and we continued to pick off a few boats on the way to mark G. It was challenging at times keeping the boat going with the high angle on the spinnaker as well as not sailing into the lee of another boat.
Afterthought and Corryvreckan stayed just ahead of us as we got to the turning mark. They rounded wide and we rounded inside of them to be upwind on the broad reach. From there we stayed just ahead of Afterhthought dodging traffic on a relatively high line while Corryvreckan went low and made some gains in clear air away from the pack. We learned a lot about how close we could get in the lee of the slower boats without having them affect our speed.
Towards the end of the race it became more downwind and we went to the left side of the course so we could come back across the course to the finish on starboard. As we converged at the finish there were two boats clear ahead that had already finished – Afterthought and Shehallion and it was close between us and Corryvreckan. They gybed at the last minute before we would have collided and we had to turn down to avoid them. We immediately protested them and crossed the finished line shortly there after. Shenanigan and Sting were all right behind us at the finish. We ultimately lost the protest on port-starboard, and I was a little disappointed that committee felt Corryvreckan kept clear even though we had to avoid them. Rather than ensuring fair sailing and safety, the protest committee set the precedent that we basically have to hit them to win the protest, which is not what we are going to ever do and not what the rules say. So as a result, the message we got is that we’ll have to give our competitors a wider berth as we can’t rely on the rules ensure fair sailing and we certainly can’t rely on the protest committee without there being contact.
Aside from the ending, it was a fun day of sailing and we finished 3rd overall. We learned a lot about sailing in traffic and had a great day on the water. Thanks Todd for having me along.
