I have mixed feelings about this event.
On the one hand, Marblehead is one of our favorite places to sail. It’s a boater’s paradise and all day long folks came motoring and sailing by to take a closer look at Dorade. The commodore of the yacht club told Matt that Dorade was the queen of this particular regatta—at the dinner on Saturday night he likened the boat to the Wayne Gretzky or Tom Brady of sailing. This is the third time we’ve been here and the previous two events we won and took home wonderful trophies made out of old wooden blocks and winches.
This year, there were two days of pursuit races on courses averaging 18 miles or so, which are usually better for Dorade. On Day One, we were expecting light winds but the breeze topped 15 knots which advantaged boats like Black Watch, with their longer waterline, and the chosen course included long reaches, which favored schooners like Spirit. We felt that we sailed well, but not well enough to beat the three other boats in our class.
Day Two, we had lighter winds overall and a course with more variety, and managed to crawl our way to the head of the pack, crossing the finish line just ahead of Black Watch. But we were dismayed to hear another boat protesting us—a rare occasion indeed—for not honoring marks listed in the course description. For us it came down to confusion about the use of parentheses—nevertheless Kevin went to the protest room and waited out the allotted time to have the protest heard, but no one showed up.
The rest of us waited on the aft deck of Serena to hear Kevin’s report, and meanwhile we got a taste of every kind of weather except snow and hail—thunder and lightning, brilliant sunshine, and a magnificent double rainbow. Regardless of the final results, we still love Marblehead and look forward to coming back next year for the 25th anniversary of the Corinthian Classic Yacht Regatta.