Maxi racer Boomerang demolishes Block Island record

by Keith Taylor on 27 May 2002 Manned by a crew of veteran sailors, George Coumantaros’ 80-foot maxi-yacht Boomerang demolished the course record for the Storm Trysail Club’s 57th annual Block Island Race this weekend by nearly three hours.

Starting on Friday night, the German Frers-designed Boomerang
sailed the 185 nautical miles from Stamford, clockwise around Block
Island and back to Stamford Harbor entrance in 16 hours, 20 minutes
and 50 seconds, at an average speed of 11.3 knots. Boomerang peeled
two hours, 53 minutes, 19 seconds off the old record set four years
ago by Hasso Plattner’s Reichel/Pugh maxi Morning Glory, steered by
America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts.

The veteran leading the veterans was owner skipper George
Coumantaros of Greenwich, CT, a member of the Storm Trysail Club
who will celebrate his 80th birthday in July this year. But first
he will compete in the 635-mile Newport to Bermuda Race next month.
Coumantaros first sailed in the annual Block Island Race in the
early 1960’s.

In a hard-fought match race that continued for all but the final
few miles of the race, Boomerang battled with another Greenwich
boat – Richard Breeden’s 75-foot Reichel/Pugh- designed Bright
Star. She finished just under an hour behind Boomerang

After the last of the 86 boats competing in the race finished early
on Sunday morning, a calculation of the handicaps showed that
Boomerang’s fast passage time had also earned her first place in
class and first in fleet for International Measurement System [IMS]
boats.

In reclaiming the race record they set in 1996 with the same boat –
and subsequently lost, by less than three minutes, two years later
to Morning Glory – Coumantaros and his crew completed their
“warm-up” for the Bermuda Race in June.

Coumantaros team was “the Boomerang alumni” – 22 past and current
crew loyalists who between them counted 265 Block Island Races and
683 years of ocean racing experience.

“There was a lot of talent and a lot of gray hair on that boat!”
said navigator Bob Hale.

John Fisher of Darien, a Boomerang regular, added: “Everything went
our way. We had good breeze almost all the way around and we were
able to maintain a good pace. It got interesting about two hours
into the race when a cold front came through. George called it and
insisted on changing to a smaller, heavyweight spinnaker. It was up
and drawing five minutes before the front rolled through. We hit
boat speeds of 17 to 18 knots and at one point we logged 20.4
knots.”

Watch captain Jeff Neuberth, Riverside, CT, said that Bright Star
had pulled ahead of Boomerang in the early stages. “They are faster
than we are in some conditions, but we were able to get past them,”
he said. “Coming back down Long Island Sound they were no more than
a mile behind us.”

The overall winner of the 46-boat Performance Handicap Racing Fleet
[PHRF] was another big boat, Dietrich Weisman’s Alden 63 Sceptre’d
Isle. She finished two and a half hours after Boomerang and on
corrected time was the handicap winner of Class 5 PHRF and PHRF
overall.

John Storck’s veteran Ericson 39 Jonrob, from Huntington, NY, won
Class 9 PHRF. A former commodore of the Storm Trysail Club, Storck
followed a family tradition and raced with three of his teenage
children as part of the crew. They will also receive the Commodore’
s Trophy for the boat that won her class and beat the second and
third placed boats in that class by the greatest margin of time.

In a different family scenario, father and son Ed Gaynor and Hewitt
Gaynor, both from Southport, CT, won in two separate classes. Ed
Gaynor sailed his custom 44-footer Emily to first place in IMS
Class 7, while his son Hewitt, campaigned his J/120 Mirelle to
first in the Doublehanded class.

Full results, plus additional information about the Block Island
Race, and the Storm Trysail Club, are posted on the web site at
http://www.stormtrysail.org