Page 20 - Kwasind Nov-Dec 2019

TEAM RCYC SUPPORTERS LETTER
Team RCYC Supporters, other than a couple of months of accounting that is ahead of me, the 2019 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup is over. For those of you that were able to make the trip to Newport, you saw first-hand the spectacular NYYC Harbour Court in Newport, and what a first-class regatta looks like. At the prize-giving dinner on Saturday night we had 45 RCYC members. We were only bested in numbers by the defending champions Southern Yacht Club out of New Orleans.
I was particularly pleased that I was able to convince, with the help of the Commodore, our new GM Neil Rooney to spend a day and an evening at Harbour Court, where the NYYC GM Jim Boyd generously gave a half a day of his time to spend with him. I am sure Neil learned a lot. Jim has been at NYYC for 10 years and when he started there, he knew nothing about sailing.
Our team was a mixture of ‘old farts’ and new blood. Sandy Andrews on the bow, John Millen flying the spinnaker and Andrew McTavish trimming the jib had sailed with me in all four previous Invitationals. To be fair, Andrew who also acted as our boat captain, isn’t as old as the three of us. New to Team RCYC was my son Evert trimming the mainsail, John’s daughter Mariah on the running backstays, Lance Fraser hoisting the spinnaker and acting as tactician, as much as my style of sailing allows, and Ingrid Merry as offside jib trimmer and pit, a very busy job at mark roundings. We had 4 days of practice as a team prior to racing when Geoff Moore of North Sails helped us out with coaching and video from the motorboat. Thanks also to Bart Meuring who drove our rented motorboat and helped with crew transport and in the
kitchen of our rented house. Also lending a big hand at the house were my wife Mickey, John’s wife Lisa and Andrew’s wife Melissa. Commodore Keating and First Lady Megan were very supportive and took out as many RCYC members on their chartered sailboat as they could fit.
As for the regatta, it was both fun and tough. If I was told prior to the regatta that we would finish fourth, I would have been very pleased. I knew that the three US clubs NYYC, Southern and San Diego would be very difficult to beat as they were full of excellent sailors and had spent a lot of time in the IC37s during the summer. I also thought that Royal Thames would be tough as, I believe, they had access to an IC37 as well. The fact that
we beat all three previous champions NYYC, Royal Thames and Southern is an accomplishment that I am proud of. We tried to be somewhat consistent throughout the regatta which proved to be difficult to do. When you have 20 identical boats and sails and 20 very good teams, it is not an easy task.
Certainly, the most fun day for us was the Friday when races 5 and 6 were sailed. We were out in Rhode Island Sound with big wind and waves. The first race we started at the leeward end of the line and went fast. A lot of teams were having a difficult time pounding through the waves, especially on port tack. We had a bow down mode that gave us that little extra speed to get us through the waves a bit better than others. We were also very fast downwind surfing on the big waves, reaching speeds up to 16 knots, I am told. We won that race by quite a lot despite the episode in the attached picture where we exposed our underside to the world at the top of the last leg. I recall, while fighting with the tiller with the boat on its side, having a look back and seeing that if we could right ourselves in a timely fashion, we still had a big enough lead to remain in first place.
We were set up for a similar leeward end start in race 6 with only one boat, Argentina to the left of us before starting gun. They had almost no speed and were not going to lay the leeward end of the line in the big waves. Unbeknownst to me, Hong Kong came in to leeward of Argentina and luffed them to the point where they collided. We sheeted in to accelerate for the pin end, avoided the leeward Argentinian boat only to see the starboard bow of Hong Kong, now on port tack, appear around the front of Argentina’s forestay. I luffed up on starboard to avoid them but
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 • KWASIND
SAILING