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Published on May 26th, 2024 | by Editor

77th annual Block Island Race

Published on May 26th, 2024 by Editor -->

The 2024 Storm Trysail Club Block Island Race was described by some as a race of “chutes and ladders” as the fleet of 76 boats started on May 24 under sunny skies in 5-10 knots off Stamford, CT. There were multiple restarts in the lighter conditions throughout the overnight race before 52 boats successfully completed the 186nm course early on May 26.

The 77th annual race navigates through Long Island Sound, around Block Island, and back with David Greenstein’s Mills 68 Space Monkey as the first to cross the finish line in 27 hours and 11 minutes. However, the ultimate victory in the ORC class was claimed by Andrew Berdon’s TP52 Summer Storm.

Berdon, now on his third Summer Storm, He recounted the significant logistical effort, led by project manager Alec Snyder, to get the boat from Kiel, Germany to the starting line within a few short months. Once on the course, Berdon emphasized the importance of staying in touch with the larger boats and making strategic decisions.

“None of them disappeared over the horizon,” he said, noting how a decisive move north to the Connecticut shore after re-entering Long Island Sound helped Summer Storm stay in the breeze while the wind died down for the rest of the ORC fleet, securing their overall win. “That’s just the nature of racing on Long Island Sound,” Berdon remarked.

In the PHRF fleet, Loki, a J/122 skippered by David Rosow, was both the first to finish and the class winner. Rosow credited their success to strategic positioning in Block Island Sound, staying south of the fleet on both the outbound and inbound legs.

“We seemed to have slightly better breeze and were positioned well for the local current effects,” Rosow explained. Like Berdon, Rosow was new to his boat and expressed his delight with the outcome: “I was thrilled and surprised we produced such a successful result with so little time in the new boat.”

In the doublehanded fleet, John Feleciano and Zach Doerr from NEKA Sailing in the Figaro 2 finished in the top spot for ORC, while Peter Becker and Adrien Blanc finished first in the J/105 for PHRF.

The Block Island Race, as always, proved to be a great race to shake out the cobwebs before summer, especially for the 57% of the teams entered in the 2024 Bermuda Race which starts June 21.

Event information – Race details – Results

Source: STC

Tags: Block Island Race

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Block Island Race Week’s Best Boat

• By Kate Somers
• Updated: November 2, 2021

“Our win is completely due to the team we had,” says Jack McGuire, a 37-year-old yacht broker from Annapolis, Maryland, who raced with a band of brothers and childhood friends to win the coveted Everett B. Morris Trophy. “The camaraderie was unmatched.”

Trimming main and calling tactics was John Mollicone, McGuire’s coach while growing up at Rhode Island’s East Greenwich YC. His brother Josh and his brother-in-law, John von Schwarz, were the boat’s spinnaker and jib trimmers. Three longtime friends, Dave Jurkowski, Nick St. Jean and Doug Nisbet, manned the pit, mast and bow, respectively. His brother Todd helped deliver the boat and prepare it for racing.

“It was definitely a family affair both on and off the water, but Block Island Race Week always has been,” McGuire says. “I actually met my wife, Elizabeth, there eight years ago when she was handing out awards because her parents were volunteers with Storm Trysail Club. This year, we all stayed together in a house on the island with our wives and kids, who were the best shore crew a team could have. The week started off with seven kids under 7, and at one point during the week we had 10 kids out there. It was just so nice to sail hard during the day and then decompress as a team with family at the end of the day. Our house was spectacular, walking distance from downtown, so we all took turns watching each other’s kids as we went out to visit some of the local establishments. It was really nice to get out into the world again.”

Block Island Race Week served as the return of Dirty Harry after 20 months of being mothballed due to the pandemic. It sat under shrink-wrap on the hard before McGuire brought the boat to Peter Ross’ speed shop in Bristol, Rhode Island, which had completed a refit a few years earlier. As a result, the team was able to do a few events before Block Island to dust off the cobwebs. “It was amazing to be back on the water with friends and family.”

Dirty Harry ’s return to glory adds another chapter to the boat’s long and storied history on Narragansett Bay. Its previous owner, John Lavin, was a legend of the local racing scene. “Growing up at East Greenwich, I always saw Dirty Harry on the mooring and knew it to be a cool race boat,” McGuire says. “Eventually, I met John and started sailing with him in my early 20s, even doing two Block Islands on the boat. He sadly passed away in 2012, and his wife, Judy, asked me to sail the boat that summer.”

When McGuire later bought the boat from Lavin’s widow, it needed some serious upgrading, and Ross took him under his wing. “He let me set up shop in his building in Bristol to help me make the necessary upgrades. By this time, I had moved to Annapolis with my wife. So, what started as a six-month project turned into a 20-month project. The boat is still a stock J/29, just everything has been updated from the 1980s. We redid the bottom, replaced anything that had a load on it, like tracks and winches, and got new sails, which is what really sets us apart. They’re designed and built by John Fries out of Connecticut—Fries Sail Design. He just knows the J/29, and our suite of sails is perfect for the boat.”

The 2021 edition of Block Island Race Week had 157 boats, including many top-tier professional programs from around the Northeast, and the caliber of the fleet was not lost on McGuire and his team, especially this year. “There is no better competition on the East Coast than Block Island Race Week,” he says. “Just watching everyone out there was amazing because clearly everyone was bringing it after a year of little to no sailing. All the divisions were competitive and deep with talent. We were in PHRF 3, which had 12 boats lining up against boats with so much experience. The Storck family in their J/80 Rumor was pushing us on the starting line every time, and Steve Thurston with his J/29 Mighty Puffin never let up as well. Everyone was just pushing hard the entire time.”

What started as a six-month project turned into a 20-month project. The boat is still a stock J/29, just everything has been updated from the 1980s.

What set his team apart from the competition, he says, were the little things on the racecourse that eventually added up to bigger margins. “It was all about getting out and finding the lane to put the throttle down, followed by our clean mark roundings. When you can hold that spinnaker until the last second before the leeward mark or execute a perfect jibe set, you just extend every time.”

But that didn’t come naturally. With coach Mollicone on board, the team went out for two hours the day before race week and ran a windward/leeward session, focusing especially on mark roundings. Mollicone was even timing Nisbet on the bow so he knew how much time they had to pull off the maneuvers.

Practice paid off, of course, and when they were called to the stage to accept their Boat of the Week award, McGuire was elated. “Four years previous, we had just finished the boat and launched a month before, so we were just happy to be bringing Dirty Harry back to Block in honor of John Lavin. I think we finished fourth. Then, in 2019, we really went for it. I had six of the seven crew that we had this year, and we were so close to the top and just lost out to Interlodge , which is an amazing race program, so we couldn’t be too disappointed.”

This year, however, everything clicked, he says. “We won every race except the around-the-island, and we only lost that one by seven seconds after 18 miles and with a symmetric spinnaker against so many asymmetric kites. Winning overall was our goal, and we achieved it, which is just pure satisfaction. There were many who said a J/29 could never win top boat, so seeing my name on the list of other winners of Block Island Race Week is so rewarding. Anytime your name and Ted Hood’s are on a trophy together, it blows your mind. I wouldn’t have changed that week for anything, and to then share that stage with family and close friends is just the icing on the cake.”

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The Block Island Race is Getting Some Updates

John Donovan’s J/111 Libertas (Southport, CT) is a winner of the Terrapin Trophy, which is awarded to the first place boat in the Block Island Race’s PHRF fleet. Photo courtesy of Rick Bannerot/OntheFlyPhoto.net

Registration for the 75th running of the Storm Trysail Club’s Block Island Race now open, and the Notice of Race is posted at Yachtscoring – Block Island Race NoR. The 186-nautical mile race, from Stamford, CT around Block Island and back to Stamford, is scheduled to start Friday, May 22.

“Just like classic race boats sometimes need to be optimized for better performance, we really wanted to update the 75th running of this annual race to encourage maximum participation,” said Ray Redniss, Storm Trysail Club Rear Commodore and Block Island Race Principal Race Officer and Event Co-Chair. “For the 75th edition we will use YB Tracking for the first time. Navigators and race fans both love this feature. In another innovation for this year, double-handed entries will start and race with their fully crewed classmates, just like the Rolex Fastnet Race. This gives them an opportunity to compete for class silver as well as against each other for double-handed podium spots.”

“Additionally, within the double-handed entries there will be a trophy for the top mixed-gender team,” Redniss continued. “This nods to the new Mixed Two Person Keelboat Offshore discipline slated for the 2024 Olympic Games. Note that we have adopted US Sailing Safety Equipment Requirements USSER “Coastal” plus a raft as the safety standards for the BI Course. These are very close to those used in the past, but we are trying to standardize sets of regulations, particularly when boats are preparing for the Bermuda Race. We will soon be announcing details about our expanded pre- and post-race parties and awards events. And if that wasn’t enough, we also have a nifty new logo!”

Perhaps most importantly, the race will feature combined ORC/IRC scoring in the same methodology being used for the World Sailing ORC/IRC Championships in September. Under this system, each boat’s elapsed time will be corrected under ORC and IRC and those corrected times will be averaged to produce the boat’s score. That event, run by the New York Yacht Club in Newport, is a rare opportunity for U.S. racer/cruisers to compete for a Worlds in home waters. NYYC will also use this combined scoring in all of their events this summer. To facilitate this system, complimentary ORC club certificates will be made available to boats that hold valid IRC or ORR certificates and which have not held a valid ORC certificate in the last five years.

STC Commodore AJ Evans describes the thinking behind choosing the new ORC/IRC system: “Class size dilution from race organizers offering too many rules has become a real problem. We think that using combined scoring will lay the groundwork for STC – as one of the most influential clubs in the international sailing community, along with other important race organizers on the East Coast – to streamline VPP rule and class options for 2021. It might seem counterintuitive to utilize two rules when competitors tell us they want only one, but it is our expectation by the end of 2020 that boat owners will be in a better position to see how their boats actually fare under one rule compared to the other and how each is used in practice by race committees. We also hope that our use of combined scoring will encourage more participation in the Block Island Race and NYYC events given the similarities in ratings and scoring.”

Event Co-Chair Doug Lynn encourages all entrants and prospective entrants to read the NoR carefully, as significant changes have been made to improve safety standards for boats (NoR 1.4) and crews (NoR 15). “With more than 100 days to go [as this issue went to press], it is easy for all to comply with a requirement which may well save a life!” said Lynn. “The links in the NoR and those found on the Storm Trysail Club website, as well as that of US Sailing, offer many options for you and your crew wherever they may be. These events often sell out, so please be sure to register early.”

The Block Island Race is a qualifier for the Northern Ocean Racing Trophy, the Double Handed Ocean Racing Trophy, and the New England Lighthouse Series (PHRF – For more details, consult the Yacht Racing Association of Long Island Sound Handbook or the Stamford Yacht Club website). The Block Island Race is also a qualifier for the De Coursey Fales, Sagola and Windigo Trophies, the du Moulin Cup for Double Handed Racing, and the Youth Challenge Cup awarded by the YRALIS, as well as the Storm Trysail Club “Tuna Trophy” for the best IRC combined scores in the Edlu Race (40%) and the Block Island Race (60%). ■

Ron Weiss, Chair of the Storm Trysail Club Sponsorship and Communications Committee, contributed to this report.

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77th Annual STC Block Island Race set to sail in classic conditions

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Storm Trysail Club Launches Registration for the 2024 Block Island Race

The eagerly awaited 77th edition of the Block Island Race is now open for registrations, as the sailing community anticipates an exhilarating maritime adventure.

Scheduled for May 24th at 2 pm, the Storm Trysail Club is looking forward to surpassing previous participation records for the 186-nautical-mile journey. This renowned event offers an enticing opportunity for both seasoned teams seeking pre-race practice and local racers in search of a fresh challenge.

Participants can opt to navigate under ORC or PHRF categories, exploring either the 186nm circuit around Block Island or the 136nm route down Long Island Sound to Plum Island.

Commodore Ray Redniss, a sailing veteran with over four decades of experience, underscores the unique nature of the course during late May. He states, “What sets this course apart is the diverse range of conditions that may unfold in late May. Sailors consistently find their resilience and skill challenged in these dynamic scenarios, truly highlighting the formidable spirit of the Block Island Race.”

In response to the evolving dynamics of competitive sailing, the Race Committee introduced a new rule in 2023. This mandates that an operational AIS Transponder must be carried and switched on from the boat’s start until it finishes or is no longer sailing, ensuring continuous transmission and reception.

In an exciting development, the Storm Trysail Club has entered into a strategic partnership with Raymarine for the 2024 Block Island Race. Participants who purchase a new Raymarine AIS700 transceiver from any Raymarine dealer or reseller before May 31, 2024, will be eligible for a $200 prepaid Visa card rebate. Further details can be found below.

The Block Island Race serves as a qualifier for prestigious trophies such as the Northern Ocean Racing Trophy (ORC), the Double Handed Ocean Racing Trophy (ORC), and the New England Lighthouse Series (PHRF). Additionally, it qualifies participants for the De Coursey Fales (PHRF), Sagola (PHRF), and Windigo (PHRF) Trophies, the du Moulin Cup for Double Handed Racing, the Youth Challenge Cup awarded by the YRA-LIS, as well as the STC Rugg Family Youth Offshore Challenge, and the coveted “Tuna Trophy” for the best ORC combined scores in the EDLU (40%) and the Block Island Race (60%).

Obituary: John J. Dorato, Jr. (1947-2024)

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February 15, 2021

2021 Block Island Race Notice of Race Posted

Featured News , Regatta News , Block Island Race

The Storm Trysail Club is pleased to announce the Notice of Race and Registration is open for the 2021 edition of the Block Island Race. Interested participants are encourage to read the NOR and register via YachtScoring: https://yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eid=14276

The 75th Block Island Race was postponed in 2020 due the COVID-19 pandemic to May 28, 2021 and had over 40 boats registered. Currently, early enthusiasm for Block Island Race Week with over 115 registrations shows there is a thirst by sailors to get back on the water. The Club encourages early registration to help organizers plan well in advance.

The race fleet will start and finish in Stamford, CT and competitors have the choice of two divisions: The Block Island Course (186 NM) and The Plum Island Course (125 NM), each with different classes and eligibility as indicated in the Notice of Race.

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