Vento Solare sailed the Twenty Hundred Club Around Aquidneck Island Challenge on Sunday 21 October and set a new record for non-spinnaker at 4 hours 37 minutes 35 seconds (corrected to 3 hours 47 minutes 27 seconds for PHRF 94). Previously we set the record in 2017 with a corrected time of 4 hours 20 minutes 26 seconds. Earlier this week Sabre 38 Tamanoa skippered by Gregg Morash beat the 2017 Vento Solare record with a corrected time of 4 hours 6 minutes 43 seconds.
Planning for this run started 2 days prior where winds and currents were evaluated. The gribs downloaded from NOAA showed that Sunday was going to be excellent conditions to set a record. As it turns out, actual conditions for wind direction and speed were very close to predicted. The elapsed time was 15 minutes greater than predicted, which is about what we lost when the jib car adjuster blew out.
The crew was Larry Bissonnette and Bill Kneller – we could have used a few more but managed to do just fine. We started and finished by the Newport bridge. Winds were “sporty” in the high teens gusting in the mid twenties, with a top gust of 30 kts. The leg from the Newport bridge out the channel was a reach, followed by a reach across the South side of the island. Up the Sakonnet was close hauled and required 2 tacks. The port jib car adjustment block blew out on the leg up the Sakonnet, but we were able to make a temporary fix and kept sailing. We stopped in the Tiverton basin to eat lunch and make better repairs to the port jib car. The clock stops while in the Tiverton basin where competitors may stop as long as desired, provided that the entire course is completed within 24 hours from the start. Following the stop in the Tiverton basin, we were close hauled up to the top of Aquidneck Island, then were able to reach the rest of the trip back, through the Mount Hope Bridge, all the way back to the Newport bridge. The RaceQs replay is available at this link to show the record run.
Stay tuned and watch the weather for an attempt at the spinnaker record sometime this coming week!
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In the end it turned out that the Ida Lewis YC awarded the youth trophy to Vento Solare. Pictures from the award ceremony and the trophies are below.
Boat Trophy and Youth Keeper Trophy for Austin, Rory & Henry
Youth Trophy Presentation
Rory & Austin Receiving Keeper Trophies (Missing Henry)
Henry with Keeper Trophy at Home
Bill
Thank you for a great time. That hour penelty seems steep. If you look at yellow brick there were a few other boats in our class that were just inside that south east dot. Not sure how picky they were being.
Either way great work by everyone. Enjoy the party.
Bill went to the protest hearing about our sailing in the exclusion zone to fix the spinnaker. The results of the protest was the RC added 1 hour to our corrected time. This put us in 2nd place for the youth entries. We would have had 1st in youth if not for this. Hope to see you all at the awards ceremony!
Updated boat call time is 10am this morning. Those needing ride on base meet 0945 pass & ID parking lot.
Happy Birthday Sarah at Cedar Point!