Hoping to complete additional races before the forecasted arrival of afternoon thunderstorms, the race committees of Marblehead’s Corinthian, Eastern and Boston yacht clubs set out this morning onto a placid Massachusetts Bay with the best intentions. Mother Nature, however, had other plans and kept sailors of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in perpetual postponement until racing was ultimately abandoned in the early afternoon.
With no additional races to count, the Marblehead regatta’s results remain unchanged with one day remaining, and with the two ILCA fleets yet to complete any races, organizers announced plans for an early Sunday morning start, to take advantage of a short window of a promising wind forecast.
With three important New England Championship titles to be decided for the Viper 640, J/70 and Town classes, each currently close in points, sailors were eager to have their respective series play out. Nick Cann and his partner Andrea Dodge, on Tonic, leaders of the competitive local Town class, said on this way to the racecourse this morning that they were looking forward to more racing and a bit of the same luck they enjoyed the previous day in a pair of races noted for the tricky conditions.
“One race, the left side was favored, and the other race, it was the right side,” Cann said, “and there was plenty of luck involved, especially in the last race when Chris Howes [on Believe It Or Not] forced me to tack away. We got second in that one and he ended up seventh, so that worked out for us.”
The Townies will have to wait another day to settle that score, as will the other 10 fleets, from which one individual winner will be selected as the overall winner and earn a berth at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Caribbean Championship in the British Virgin Islands in late October where they will compete against other individual Regatta Series winners as well as the 2022 Championship’s defending team.
