(Nantucket, MA)- This year's famous FIGAWI race was perhaps one for the
record books. It was wild, wet, cold, rainy and windy. The several
thousand sailors in the race faced the same conditions as many of their
sailing friends who were participating in the Storm Trysail Club Block
Island Race just a bit further east of Nantucket-- powerful NNW winds of
15-25 kts and mountainous seas drove the fleet fast across Nantucket
Sound from Hyannis to Nantucket in an epic, wet & windy
roller-coaster ride. Of the 210 boats that registered, about 75% of
them completed the race due to the crazy conditions.
The pursuit-style race with quartering seas and winds were fun
conditions for most of the J teams planing and surfing like mad all the
way across Nantucket Sound.
In Division S were lumped all the fast asymmetric spinnaker
sprit boats, essentially a J/class division with thirteen boats vying
for being the "big banana" amongst the deck apes bragging at the Charity
Ball. First boat home was the J/105 DARK'N'STORMY sailed by Andrew
Reservitz. Second into the harbor was the J/120 M-SQUARED skippered by
Bill Mack and third home was the J/111 PRAVDA 2 with Ed Kaye at the helm
(proud of their inaugural effort in the FIGAWI). Fourth home was the
J/105 BEAR SPIRIT sailed by Jonathan Bloom and, remarkably, the fifth
boat home was the J/105 PRIMA sailed by the Nantucket High School
Sailing Team and led by their skipper Diana Brown-- congratulations to
all!
It was interesting sailing for the J sprit boats, after about 4.5 hours
of sailing, less than fifteen minutes separated the top ten! That's
close sailing and a pretty reasonable job on handicapping the boats in
PHRF, too. For more FIGAWI Race sailing information
