Maine Sailing Partners

Sail Maine PHRF Regatta

Sail Maine is for the first time sponsoring a PHRF regatta.  Coming June 6^th in Portland Harbor.  Press release is up on Facebook.  This is a new venture for Sail Maine, and proceeds will help support community sailing in Portland and beyond.  We hope everybody makes the effor to turn out for this one.  It also earns points for the GMORA seaseon.

J/24 Sails

This past weekend Heather Ambrose nosed out Carol Cronin to win the 2008 International J/24 Women's Open Championship at the Beverly Yacht Club with a full inventory of Sailing Partners sails.  Congratulations, Heather and crew.  Here thery are sporting their Vermont Sailing Partners T's.

   

Attention Race Committees

Not much for race committees to do in Maine this time of year, except maybe get a bunch of organizational details out of the way so you don't find you are missing an important piece of the puzzle  in the middle of your big summer regatta.  In addition to a good group of people, running races properly requires collecting a bunch of stuff.  The Desert Sea  - New Mexico Sailing blog has a pretty exhaustive list of what that stuff is. (Thanks to Scuttlebutt for the link)   If you are going to be running a regatta this year, you might want to make a copy of this list as a starting point for your own equipment check list.

Vermont Strikes Lightning

Jeff and Amy Linton and Jahn Tihanski just won the 2007 Lightning World Championship using a complete sail inventory from our sister loft, Vermont Sailing Partners.  Congratulations.  Now the world knows Bill Fastiggi builds the best Lightning sails anywhere.
 

Letter from Miami

Former Maine Sailing Partner Pete writes:

So, I am down here in Miami getting ready to sail the Mumm 30 Worlds with Barking Mad.  We were measuring our sails in today and our main and S2 didn't measure in.  So we went to the local UK loft with our coach, Coach Bill Shore (whom we were calling Dad in the West Marine to try and freak him out) and I got a chance to show off my sail making skillzzzzzzz.  Yep, stitch ripping, hand work, seizing, bolt ropes and the lot.  I wasn't able to get on a machine, only the loft owner did that.  There were three of us, Bill, myself and the tactician (who had never been in a loft before).  The loft owner only charged us for 2.5 people and unless Bill counted as 2, I am pretty sure I was not the 1/2 person.  Anyway, just thought I'd check in and let you guys know your patience on the floor didn't go TOTALLY wasted.  Oh yeah, and I'm engaged.  Other than that, not much is new.

 

Pete

Shipyard Cupdate

Here's a picture of Goshawk getting ready to start on Day 1, sporting her Cuben Fiber mainsail and Contender Maxx light genoa.  Contender salesman, who passed on the photo from Maine Coastal News' Jon Johanson, pointed out the dramatic different in the construction of the two sails - the Cuben main has 90 panels; the Maxx genoa has 20...

Shipyard Cup

During my cruise, I got the chance to participate in the Shipyard Cup, a race for yachts over 70 feet.  This regatta is hosted by Hodgdon Yachts, builder of gorgeous megayachts.  Event chairman is former Maine Sailing Partner and Points East yachtsman of the year Ted Smith, and he certainly puts on a show.

In addition to some great parties, the event consists of two races of about 20 miles around Boothbay and environs.  The handicaps are applied at the start so that the first boat to finish is the winner.  I sailed on the 76 foot Goshawk, designed by Bob Stephens and Built by Brooklin Boatyard.  We managed a very creditably 4, 1 for second place overall, but couldn't defeat the ILC maxi Captivity.  As someone commented bringing this boat to the Shipyard Cup was kind of like bringing a gun to a knife fight.

Another participant was this handsome schooner, shown about to take her start:

When she was under construction we were asked to bid on her sails, but demurred since we felt we could not adhere to the somewhat anachronistic specifications required by the owner.  Apparently, the owner has revised his views on appropriate technology as she was sporting a new radial main and fisherman staysail (not by MSP).  Unfortunately, it appears from this closeup that the fabrics chosen aren't really up to the task.

We hope the owner isn't put off modern sailmaking...

Frostbite

Rob and I have been participating in the Sail Maine Frostbite Series.  Eight teams sailing identical Ynglings on Sundays through the middle of December.  The weather has been very clement so far and the racing tight on short windward leeward courses.  A link to results is in our events sidebar.

There are also a few more photos here.

The Hewitt Trophy

Here's some tight starting line action at the Hewitt Trophy, NEISA's northern New England championship, hosted by the Bates College Sailing Team at the beautiful Taylor Pond Yacht Club in Auburn, Maine, last weekend.  Our own Sam Carter was the winning "A" division skipper, leading the   UNH sailing team  to an overall victory.  Bates sailors Nate Merrill, Sarah Hoyt, Carolyn McNamara, and Lily Conover came in second for the weekend.  The regatta was the first workout for Bates' new MSP sails.

Monhegan

Last weekend was the annual running of the Portland Yacht Club Monhegan Island race.  This year the race featured an open class start which included Artforms, Gryphon Solo, and Ocean Planet.  You can read Bruce Schwab's report on Ocean Planet's race at Sailing Anarchy. 

MSP customers who won their class:  Ted Smith and Sash Spencer in Whiplash won the doublehanded division, and Mark Werner won the cruising canvas Seguin Island class in Nipantuck.  Chris Jennings in Milady took second in the Manana Island division, largest class with 14 entries.  Full results here.

Here's OP just after the start with her MSP Cuben Fiber mainsail.

Appropriately enough, who should be caught driving but former Cuben Marty Stephan.  What makes solo sailors?  They can't delegate.  With 11 on board, look who's grinding the jib winch.

Below are a couple of other MSP customers headed out Hussey Sound,  Maine Maritime Academy's Sheerness  and Bruce Cassidy's Emotional Rescue.