2015 Robie Pierce One-Design Regatta winner announced

by Jan Hodnett on 6 Jun 2015 Over the May 29-31 weekend, 17 crews of sailors with disabilities sailed specially adapted Ideal 18s in the seventh annual Robie Pierce One-Design Regatta at American Yacht Club. Hosted jointly by the American and Larchmont Yacht Clubs, the Robie continues to be the only adaptive regatta on Long Island Sound.

This year, Duane Farrar (Watertown, MA) and Amy Bower (Falmouth, MA), blind sailors sailing with Sol Marini as their sighted guide and Able Body (AB) sailor, bested the fleet with a final point total of 18 points after ten races. They won four of the ten races. The trio, striving to compete in the next Blind Sailing World Championship in Chicago, IL, beat out last year’s Robie Pierce winning combination of Mike Hersey (Hyannis, MA) and 2008 Paralympic Gold Medalist Maureen McKinnon (Marblehead, MA) with Hersey’s son Matt reprieving his role as AB. Rounding out the top three was Craig Wilson (Holden, MA) and Charles McClure (Brookline, MA) sailing with Paula Schaefer and Roger King sharing the AB duties.

2015 is the seventh year that American and Larchmont Yacht Clubs have hosted the Robie Pierce Regattas for sailors with disabilities. Siobhan Reilly and Bill Sandberg of American Yacht Club, and Buttons Padin of Larchmont Yacht Club have jointly chaired the Robie for seven years and are dedicated to advancing adaptive sailing in Western Long Island Sound. Over 200 hundred sailors have sailed in these regattas.

New to the event were four entries from the Warrior Sailing Program. Founded by Paralympic Silver medalist Jen French and US Paralympic coach Betsy Alison (who was recently named head of the Paralympic committee at the International Sailing Federation (ISAF), the program is focused on introducing active military and veterans with disabilities to sailing. Sailing in their first regatta, veteran boats finished fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth.

Craig Wilson, skipper of the third-place finisher commented about this regatta, “Robie taught me how to sail and the members and staff of AYC took care of us nicely. All the things provided for us by AYC and by the sponsors were wonderful. Without that help and support, you can’t have a regatta.” His comments about the welcoming nature of AYC and its staff and members were echoed by many of the sailors.