Upcoming Regattas and Announcements
The etymology of "August" is from Latin: Augustus Caesar. In other words, the month for conquerors! Get out there and crush! This month has a lot to offer, from Buzzard's Bay Masters (Aleve sold separately) to a pair of fresh water Grand Prix events at Mallets Bay and Lake Sunapee. Stone Horse rides again, and Cedar Point ushers in September. To get more information and register, see the schedule at the bottom of the newsletter for registration links to major regattas. If you are looking for local club sailing, check out the D7 fleet page.
Buzzards Bay ILCA Masters Championship, New Bedford YC, Padanaram Village, MA, August 2-3
Dear children of the 70’s, 80’ and 90’s…. Who can forget their first laser baptism by fire at the storied Buzzards Bay Regatta? It was so popular they had to limit registrants to 60! It was the place where we may have first learned how to death roll, and death roll again, followed by a nice long beat into Buzzards Bay chop, pursuing the luminaries of the day. We are older, wiser, and sailing better boats now, but the tradition continues (hopefully, without the death rolling) and the luminaries keep showing up! The regatta got renamed for some lentiginous reasons (like the ILCA), but the tradition has been kept alive at the New Bedford Yacht Club in beautiful Padanaram village. No offense to Marion and the Beverly Yacht Club, but this is the finest venue on Buzzards Bay, offering a quick sail to the racecourse and all the wonderful conditions you expect. Like last year, we will launch from the beach next door to the yacht club, and a good party is on tap (for those aren’t heading for the sack at 7 PM). As past participants will attest, this is really one of the best masters regattas in North America. Hope to see you there!
submitted by Mark Bear
Stone Horse Regatta, Harwich, MA, August 10
Home of the 2024 D7 Championship, which saw 60 plus boats, Stone Horse YC is doing it again. Come joins this fantastic event: Easy beach launch into warm Cape waters. Waves and wind! The SHYC ILCA fleet will organize and run a regatta on August 10th, open to all SHYC members, guests and visitors to the club. The regatta is expected to run from 10:00-12:30 with registration available at 0800 and prizes and lunch at 1300.
Here come the Grand Prix Freshies. Dunk your boat in crystalline waters. Clean your gear and your soul!
Malletts Bay Boat Club Regatta, Colchester, VT August 16-17
"Hey, what's a fun New England town to visit in the summer?"
"How about Burlington, VT. You got a hip, college scene, counter-culture vibe, and fantastic waterfront dining. Peace, love, and breweries."
Malletts Bay Boat Club (MBBC) is hosting the Vermont leg of the District 7 Laser Gran Prix Regatta series on August 16 & 17. MBBC is located on Lake Champlain just north of Burlington, Vermont. It's a beautiful regatta venue with sailing on Malletts Bay, protected from large waves yet unobstructed breezes. The Club has a long history of hosting large regattas including the Lightning Worlds and J24 and Laser National Championships. MBBC will provide a Saturday evening Burger Burn and coffee & bagel breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday. Limited housing is available on a first come basis. Just imagine yourself coming down on a nice breeze across Lake Champaign, like these cool kids:
Lake Sunapee Yacht Club Open Regatta, Sunapee, NH, August 23-24
The second Grand Prix Freshy is at Lake Sunapee, Come sail where you usually ski. This multi-fleet regatta is an opportunity to earn Grand Prix points close to Boston! LSYC puts on a great show, and you can check out those big lasers called Stars.
Cedar Point YC Rear Commodore's Cup, Cedar Point YC, Westport, CT
Here is another opportunity to familiarize yourself with the venue for the 2025 D7 Championship. Come enjoy the warm waters, excellent competition, and good friends. First warning is 14:00. Contact cpylaser@gmail.com
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District News
Atlantic Coast Masters and the Quantum Physics of Kollegewidgwok
In quantum physics, knowing the location of a photon of light comes down to probabilities: where the wave amplitude is highest, the photons are most likely to be. However, there is always uncertainty, and the photons could be anywhere. Likewise, the sailing amplitude is highest in places like Newport and Miami, but that doesn’t mean all the great sailors will be there. Blue Hill, Maine is a case in point. It is one beautiful downeast hurricane hole filled with lovely boats and fine people, but it’s small, quark-like small, and yet some of the best ILCA masters sailors in North America could all be found at Kollegewidgwok YC for the 2025 Atlantic Coast Masters, guys like Rob Hallawell, Peter Hurley, and Peter Vessella, to name just a few. It was a remarkable low-probability concentration of Laser Photons. (There was also a high probability concentration of lobster, over 100 pounds of the yummy stuff for the Saturday dinner, along with cheesy cornbread and soft serve ice cream, and local Maine IPA, and…Sorry I digress.)
Another oddity of quantum physics is that you can know the position of a particle and you can know its velocity, but you can’t know both at once (Yeah, head scratcher) The wind for the ACCs proved to be just the same. The usually steady southerly got quirky (quarky?) and went southwest, coming down the course in distinct 10-20 knot packets of energy that Neils Bohr would have appreciated. You could go left and find a lefty. You could right and find a righty, then lefty, then right...wait big lefty. You could go up the middle and find yourself in first, then mid-fleet, then last. The uncertainty of the wind pattern left most of us who last took physics in high school utterly befuddled. Past Olympians like Lynn Shore dialed it in while the weekend warriors just watched the seals.
KYC Race Committee treated the 36 ILCA 7s and 12 ILCA 6s to 4 races on Saturday and 2 on Sunday, providing a much needed drop. Rob Hallawell took first overall in the ILCA 7s with an impressive 9 points after a drop of a 4th and before before the handicap that gave him a net of 23. In the ILCA 6, the youngster and Maine’s own Jamie Carter had a picket fence regatta, dropping a 1st! But at the masters, the more arthritis you have the more help you get, so Jean Fillon (one of the best ILCA 6 masters in the US) won the day after the handicap. He graciously pointed to Jamie as the “real winner”. Classy stuff.
Back to questions of chance, I have kept in abeyance the real factors that created this wonderful event. These are the folks at KYC. First off, the dynamic duo of Jeff Bethwick and Sean Guinness and their lovely wives Michelle and Chris who did an incredible organizational job and were gracious hosts. Kenelm Guinness, Sean’s brother, orchestrated a lobster boil with AI-worthy accuracy. (These guys actually name each pot and give it its own timer so there is none of Einstein’s time dilation when the supper bell rings. “Pull number six pot in five, four, three…” Our PRO Peter Smith ran a tight operation. Super clear on when the U flag would come out, and it did.
Will it all come together another time? Will we all return to such a sweet spot? What are the quantum probabilities? I can’t do the math, but, boy, I hope so.
Helly Hansen Marblehead Race Week
The 136th Marblehead Race Week sponsored by HelleyHansen/Sailing World delivered 12 ILCA 7s 12 races over July 26th and 27th, brilliantly run by Franny Charles. The fleet experienced nearly every weather condition from de-powering to drifter and sunshine to rain…sometimes in a single race. Local youth phenom Nicolas Regnault won 9 races discarding a 4th to claim the title. John Tagliamonte sailed consistently enough to eke out 2nd place over frequent podium finisher Stein Skaane who was OCS at -15 seconds under an ‘I’ flag in the final race. Many of the rest of the Marblehead ILCA fleet were sailing other competitive keelboat classes including J/70, Etchells and Rhodes19 (Ledyard McFadden, Patrick Andreasen, Anne-Marije Veenland with Liza Clinton, and Tom Dailey to name just a few) underscoring the strength of this fleet. John Tagliamonte reporting
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2025 District 7 Regattas as of 1/27/25 | Date | Counts towards D7 Gran Prix? | Notes | Under the Rope | April 6 | | Eastern YC, Marblehead, MA Show up at 11 AM & register on site. Prizes and party afterwards. Contact tomdailey15@gmail.com | Peter Milnes Regatta | April 19 | | Fleet 413, Newport, RI | Cedar Point YC Vice Commodore’s Cup | May 25th | | Cedar Point YC, Westport, CT First warning is 14:00, Contact cpylaser@gmail.com | Wickford Regatta | June 7-8 | Y | Wickford YC, Wickford, RI | Winnipesaukee Spring Laser Regatta | June 21 | | Winnipesaukee YC, Gilford, NH Contact jarabinowitz@gmail.com | Portland YC Regatta | June 21 | Y | Portland YC, Falmouth, ME Contact jbqpollard@gmail.com | John Bentley Regatta | June 28 | Y | New Bedford YC, South Dartmouth, MA | Cedar Point YC Commodore’s Cup | July 5th | | Cedar Point YC, Westport, CT First warning is 14:00, Contact cpylaser@gmail.com | Taylor Pond ILCA Invitational | July 12 | | Taylor Pond YC, Auburn ME. Great warm-up for Atlantic Coast Masters. Contact petergarcia207@gmail.com | Atlantic Coast Masters | July 19-20 | | Kollegewidgwok YC, Blue Hill, ME | Hyannis Yacht Club Regatta | July 26-27 | | Hyannis, MA (assuming ILCA is a class) | Helly Hansen Marblehead Race Week | July 26-27 | | Eastern YC, Marblehead, MA | Buzzards Bay ILCA Masters Championship | August 2-3 | | New Bedford YC, New Bedford, MA | Stone Horse Regatta | August 10 | | Stone Horse YC, Harwich, MA The SHYC ILCA (Laser) fleet will organize and run a regatta on August 10th, open to all SHYC members, guests and visitors to the club. The regatta is expected to run from 10-12:30pm with registration available at 0800 and prizes and lunch at 1300. | Malletts Bay Boat Club Regatta | August 16-17 | Y | Colchester, VT | Lake Sunapee Yacht Club Open Regatta | August 23-24 | Y | Sunapee, NH | Cedar Point YC Rear Commodore’s Cup | August 31 | | Cedar Point YC, Westport, CT First warning is 14:00, Contact cpylaser@gmail.com | Massapoag 75th Annual | September 5-7 | | Sharon, MA | CT D7 Grand Prix Regatta | September. 20 | Y | Niantic Yacht Club, Niantic, CT | Ponce De Leon Regatta | September 7th | | Eastern YC, Marblehead, MA. Show up at 11 AM & register on site. Prizes and party afterwards. Contact tomdailey15@gmail.com | New England Masters | September 6-7 | | Wickford YC, Wickford, RI | Cedar Point YC Fall One Design Regatta | September 27-28 | | Cedar Point YC, Westport, CT Times to be announced. This is a great warm-up for the D7 Championship the following week!, Contact cpylaser@gmail.com | Cedar Point Yacht Club D7 Championship | October 4-5 | Y | Cedar Point YC, Westport, CT | Hyannis YC Oktoberfest Regatta 2025 | October 12 | | Hyannis YC, Hyannis, MA Great annual event! | Turkey Bowl | November 23 | | Eastern YC, Marblehead, MA Show up at 11 AM & register on site. Prizes and party afterwards. Contact tomdailey15@gmail.com | D7 Gran Prix races in green. Sail as many as you can and win points for great prizes |
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