Rockland Castine Regatta

Two great days of racing took place this past weekend at the 3rd Annual Rockland Castine Regatta hosted by Rockland Yacht Club. In all 32 boats made it to the line for the start on both days. There were two cruising classes, three racing classes, a shorthanded division, and a multihull division each sailing a 20 mile course, to and from, Rockland and Castine Harbors. Day one was the sleigh ride to Castine with a 10-20 knot WSW breeze that was reasonably consistent throughout the race. Keemah, the J/105 owned by Don Logan, in racing class two was the second boat to finish. It was not the day for the big boats as they were never able to catch all the way up to most of the smaller boats. Day 2 would be another story completely. Day two started off with a whimper and finished off with a bang. The weather intelligence provided the race committee with a forecast for some wind although it didn’t look like it just after the starting sequence had begun. A nice 5 knot northerly filled just outside Castine harbor, and the race committee anxiously started the race on time. However, that wind proved to be a fluke and very light air commenced for the rest of the starting sequence. Luckily a nice 1 knot+ outgoing current kept most of the boats moving toward the goal of Rockland harbor while the whole fleet waited for a southwesterly wind to fill for a great upwind leg back home. The wind did fill to about 10-15 knots and provided some large oscillations between 200 degrees and 250 degrees during the race. The boats that hit the shifts just right each time made huge gains, however, if you got caught on the wrong side it was hard to recover. The shifts only took place every 40 minutes or so, which created a wait and see, patience game. The outgoing current meant that you didn’t need to go to a shore but boats would go to each side of the course and create some major leverage of about 1-2 miles at times. The larger boats were able to catch up with the fleet on day two. Keemah won the overall by 1 minute and 35 seconds. Congratulations to Keemah and Don Logan’s crew on a second consecutive overall win of the Rockland Castine Regatta.