Low-Key Island, High-Stakes Race

by Barby MacGowan on 20 Jun 2007 Block Island, where there are no street addresses and where winding dirt roads lead to rented crew houses, today shared its more glorious side with 2000 sailors competing in the Storm Trysail Club's Block Island Race Week XXII presented by Rolex.

The traditional around-the-island race, typically saved for mid-week, was moved up a day by the race committee due to a frontal passage expected tomorrow. The result was a predominantly light-air race that kept tacticians on their toes for 18 miles and provided crews on 183 boats with panoramic views of the island's stunning natural scenery. Landmarks to ogle were the 125-year-old Southeast Lighthouse, the 250-foot Mohegan Bluffs and the Clayhead Nature Trails.

For a second day, current played a major role in determining results, and Robert and Farley Towse's (Stamford, Conn.) Blue Yankee, with Steve Benjamin driving, played it the best among boats in the IRC Super Zero class. After a stellar start off New Harbor, Blue Yankee headed to the beach where there was less current and more wind, then led its class around the course while finding lanes to eventually pass 15 classes that started beforehand. With the Rolex US-IRC National Championships at stake here, Blue Yankee is looking to be a top contender. 'I can definitely say the boat is performing as it was intended,' said Benjamin. 'She's doing quite well and sailing to her rating.'

Several inter-class protests were pending at press time, and it was determined that the overall IRC fleet winner for today will be announced on Friday. In addition to a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner timepiece, that winner takes home the Island Sailing Club of Cowes Perpetual Trophy, first awarded in 1965 and commemorating the link to Britain's Cowes Week, after which Block Island Race Week was patterned.

A provision for a second around-the-island race over the next three days makes it especially important for the teams to learn from today's triumphs and mistakes.

'The race was challenging, exciting.all those synonyms for difficult,' said Stephen De Voe (Stamford, Conn.), whose Swan 45 Devocean sits in second place in IRC Zero class. 'In the adverse current and light air, boats stacked up at the first and second windward marks and the bigger boats caught up with the slower ones, so that probably caused some of the protests.'

Dick Hyde's (Belmont, Mass.) Frers-designed Freightrain had no problem escaping the fray, however. He handily won his PHRF Class 2 with a good start and clean sailing that helped extend his lead. 'I would've thought this race would be our weakest event, because Freightrain is not a great reaching boat; we usually give something up in the around-the-island race,' said Hyde, who has done six of these Race Weeks and has been sailing with his same team for close to 20 years. He laughed, adding, 'There are no all-stars on our team, just a bunch of guys on a 25-year-old boat in our 50s and 60s. Our competitors should be ashamed.'

Like Freightrain, John and Tony Esposito's (Mohegan Lake, N.Y.) Hustler has a perfect scoreline after a total of three races in their PHRF Class 3 series. Skippering the boat is Bear Hovey (Milford, Conn.), who John says is 'the best there is at driving around this island.' After Class 3 started, the race committee delayed subsequent class starts to reset the starting line, which may have helped keep the sailing relatively clean for Hustler. 'In fact, we were leading the entire fleet for 13 1/2 minutes until Blue Yankee passed us,' said John.

Today was Lewmar and Vineyard Vines Race Day, while Gill and Yellow Tail wine sponsored the official party under the event tent.

Compliments of Rolex, daily video shows of each day's racing, produced by Annapolis-based T2Productions, will be shown and broadcast on-line each night by 9 p.m. on www.t2p.tv. Race Week sponsors are Rolex, Jeep, Mt. Gay, Caithness Energy, Vineyard Vines, Lewmar, B&G, Gill, Hall Spars, J Boats, the Rhode Island State Yachting Committee, Sailing World, UKHalsey Sailmakers, West Marine, Gowrie, Barden & Brett, Summit Performance Yachts, WindCheck Magazine, Sailing World, Heineken and Yellow Tail wine.

Race administration and scoring is by Yacht Scoring (www.yachtscoring.com. For more information, visit www.blockislandraceweek.com