Gentle Breezes?

Bernadette Levesque (4158) showing her son Noah (4062) how to sail a fast downwind leg.

29 boats, and their skippers showed up for an easy sail in the gentle 21-30 knot breezes at the Massapoag Small Boat Rodeo Regatta yesterday. Capsizes were the order of the day in all three fleets. Some of the boats threw their skippers, and others sailed away without them, and there were a couple of breakdowns due to the wind.

The competition in the Championship fleet was fierce. PRO Greg Kampf summed it up perfectly, saying "Tough Fleet" when he found out that one quarter of the fleet was made up of current or former North American Champions. Dan Hesse travelled all the way from Saratoga Springs NY to take the regatta with 8 points in 6 races. He bested Bill Brangiforte, Scott Greenbaum, Alan Beckwith and Ken Charles.

The Sunfish Challenger fleet ended up with a 3-way tie for first place. John Houstle took the tiebreaker and first place, even after sailing upside down most of the day.  Mark Stoughton too 2nd and Noah Levesque took 3rd.

The Levesque family is trying very hard to match the Charles family for the biggest family Sunfish Fleet.  Bernadette was joined by her husband Pete and her son Noah, who are both new to the Sunfish class.

Dwight Escalara of Wakefield, RI took the Laser honors, beating John Eckart, Judy Krimski, Nat Cook and John Dugan.

The regatta also marked the inaugural of RS Aero racing at the club.  It's a new class and they guys in that fleet are generating a lot of interest in the boat.  Eric Aker took first place, winning all six races. Derek Stowe took 2nd and Gary Werden took 3rd.

Thanks to MYC's Scott Rosa for taking a lot of fantastic photos, which are up on our MYCSunfish Flickr site.