2016 Moth Midwinters – Upper Keys, never leaving
by US Moth Class on 6 Feb 2016
Upper Keys, never leaving - 2016 Moth Midwinters US Moth Class
2016 Moth Midwinters - Just 20 yards off the pier at the Upper Keys Sailing Club today, David Loring couldn’t stop. A quick jerk on the tiller and the helmet-clad Carolinian went head long through the rigging, slicing his forearm. Loring was top three on this, the first day of the Moth Midwinters and proved that even the best sailors run out of options.
Buttonwoods Sound produced 15-23 knots for the Moth Midwinters, the second of the three-regatta Moth Winter Series that began at Coconut Grove Sailing Club last month in Miami. Thirteen sailors from five nations arrived this week and the “fresh and frightening” conditions knocked the group down to nine by the first gun.
A zig-zag slalom course with a reaching start resulted in boats within boatlengths of each other all the way around the course at upwards of 28 knots. In the end, Moth guru Anthony Kotoun took the day while Matt Knowles and Loring followed in second and third respectively.
Loring, 42, father of three, was the only sailor to slap a helmet on today. “I was angry when I crashed because I got hurt,” he said. “I was 100 yards from having a rum. I put a helmet on because if the breeze forecast starts with a two, I put a helmet on. Having three little girls, I’m too important to other people. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
With 11th Hour Racing as a US fleet partner, the class members have been encouraging each other to clean up all their spectra clippings and tape bits, but the big surprise was the famously garbage-free clear water of Key Largo. “There was zero trash on the race course today,” said Kotoun. “Earlier in the week I hit one plastic back, flipped over and picked it up.”
Only one casualty occurred on the day when Ben Moon, an Australian, was tailing the Swede, Magnus Gravor and the later crashed, allowing his rudder to cleanly slice through Moon’s Dyneema shroud, sending the rig into the bay.
A rainy but moderate-breeze forecast should assure that all 13 racers will be on the starting line to consummate what is looking to be one of the most enjoyable events of the winter season. Flat water, wind, silly fun hosts and conch fritters: what more could we ask? As absent fleet member Johnny Goldsberry would say, “Bonanza!”
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