Over the weekend of September 20-23, Brian Doyle from Lake Sunapee (NH) Yacht Club, proved that a lake sailor can handle five-to-seven-foot seas running down Long Island Sound after a three-day easterly. Hosted by Noroton Yacht Club, Darien, CT, in winds in the mid-teens most of the weekend, it was “sporty” Sonar sailing with waves breaking over bows, planing downwind, and lots of bilge pumping.
Doyle was sailing with Shane Wells, Kelsey Wheeler, and Steve Kirkpatrick, Together they put on a master class in Sonar sailing winning five of eight races. They threw out a fourth to finish with only 10 points. He credits his win to his team’s performance noting, “Collectively we were on it. Every mark rounding, every tack, every gybe our boat handling was right on. That allowed us time to think about the course and go the right way. That said, the wind and wave conditions we encountered here are a little different than what we encounter on Lake Sunapee but we loved it.”
In second was local Noroton sailor TK Kinney with Alison Widmann Kinney, Kevin Sheehan, and Howard Seymour aboard. Kinney won three races finishing three points ahead of Erin Maxwell in third. Maxwell is another Noroton member who had as crew her husband Britt Bischoff, Gretchen Singsen, and her brother-in-law Clay Bischoff. Erin, one of the two women helms in the Championship noted, “It was work for everyone to keep the boats going upwind in the waves. Downwind was quite the ride working to keep the boat on its line surfing down waves.”
The International Sonar Class Association would like to thank Noroton Yacht Club for hosting this championship and NYC member Garin Pace for all the work he did as Event Chair.
Results: https://norotonyc.org/regatta/HQQq0ZAkQs/results
Photos: Rick Bannerot
