Matha’s Vineyard Round the Island Race - Overall report
by Paul Cayard on 1 Aug 2016
Vesper - Les Voiles de St. Barth Jouany Christophe
Saturday, an 80 boat fleet of various sizes and speeds, raced the 57 nm course, counter clockwise around Marth’s Vineyard. The forecast was not great but in the end, a nice southwesterly sea breeze filled in and helped the fleet get around before dark.
In the TP52 class, we had a good battle with Vesper and Spookie. We on Phoenix led at each mark of the course but throughout the race, the lead changed hands more than 10 times.
The final shuffle was just 10 miles from the finish. Vesper, leading had to make a choice to go south or north of a sand bar. They took the south while Spookie and Phoenix took the north side. Initially the north looked very good as we maintained four - five knots of speed while Vesper was completely stopped for more than 10 minutes.
This got the two northern boats about two miles away from Vesper. Around 4:00pm, a southerly wind filled in and carried Vesper down the north shore of Marth’s Vineyard and into a comfortable lead. Spookie and Phonix got the wind about 10 minutes later.
At the finish, Vesper crossed the line about five minute ahead of Phoenix who crosses 2.5 minutes ahead of Spookie. Phoenix rates higher than Spookie so she took second on corrected time.
Nest up for us on Phoenix is the NYYC Cruise mid-August. Spookie will be racing there as well.
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/146960
