|
SOUTHWEST
HARBOR — Last year’s Southwest Harbor Rendezvous was marked by nearly perfect
weather and breathtaking finishes. Saturday’s
Rendezvous proved that for every yin there is a
yang.
The 11 previous
Friendship Sloop Society gatherings in Southwest
Harbor had known only fair skies.
The trend was so
ingrained that two weeks ago, Rendezvous organizer
and racer Miff Lauriat made two promises: the
weather would be great and the fleet would be
large.
As rain bounced
off the water at the start of the noontime race,
it was clear at least one of those promises would
go unfulfilled.
For a time it
looked as though Lauriat may be 0 for 2 with his
prediction as only four other boats, Phoenix,
Endeavor, Tradition and Chrissy joined Lauriat’s
own Salatia circling around the starting line off
Sand Point at the northwest point of Greenings
Island. Just prior to the final canon, however,
Gladiator, which had spent much of the previous
afternoon and evening washed up on the rocks just
outside of Southwest
Harbor, made her appearance at the starting line.
The ordeal may
have been perceived as a good omen since the
102-year-old sloop had hit the rocks in Casco
Passage before winning last year’s Rendezvous.
Minutes after the start, the Helen Brooks came
across the line as an official entry.
The roughly
seven-mile oval course clockwise around the
eastern point of Sutton Island and back to Sand
Point began with a short sprint to the mouth of
Somes Sound as gusty winds blew up to 15 to 20
knots. Jarvis Newman’s 31-foot Tradition had the
early lead, but the 30-foot Phoenix, which holds
the record for most Rendezvous wins, took the lead
by the time the boats reached Bear Island.
After passing the
Sound, sailors looked for wind and the 25-foot
Salatia found it, taking a course farther away
from the protection of Northeast
Harbor. As the other sloops were all but becalmed, Salatia gained ground,
moving into fourth place behind
Phoenix, Tradition
and the 32-foot Gladiator.
After
rediscovering the wind around Sutton
Island, Phoenix built a big lead as
Gladiator and Tradition also broke away from the
rest of the fleet.
While last year’s
race was a near-photo finish between Gladiator and
Tradition, the drama was gone from this year’s
race early in the competition. The order changed
little as sailors struggled in diminishing winds
as they tacked their way to the finish line. In
the end, Phoenix added to her record wins,
finishing the course in 1:51:33 — 4 minutes 24
seconds ahead of Gladiator. Tradition placed third
in 1:58:32.
The friendly
competition between Southwest
Harbor’s Betsey Holtzmann’s 25-foot wooden Endeavor and the fiberglass Salatia
was hardly competitive. Salatia placed fourth,
nearly 30 minutes behind Tradition, but just as
far ahead of fifth-place Endeavor. The Chrissy, a
92-year-old 30 footer out of
Essex, Mass., which traveled the
farthest to take part in the race, gave up and
crossed the finish line under power.
While the
Friendship race is a celebration of history, one
of the highlights of the day was a look toward the
future when Tamara, the 36-footer recently built
by Ralph Stanley Inc., made her maiden voyage in
the harbor. Stanley, from the cabin of his Seven
Girls, which served as the committee boat for the
race, watched the new sloop intently as she took
her first tacks out of
Southwest Harbor.
The new sloop with
her classic look heeled little, even in strong
gusts. But Stanley said she needed more ballast
aft.
Overall, Stanley
said he was pleased with the newest addition to
the Friendship fleet — even in the rain. |
