The race landscape is different this year — fewer races and less competition. 

With an eye to providing an affordable junior race option to get less experienced sailors out on the water while giving starts to those racers starved for competition, the Barrington Yacht Club launched the Barrington Invitational, a free, tow-in regatta on Narragansett Bay. The event was held late last month.

With no on-land component to organize, race organizer and Barrington Yacht Club Sail Training Program Chairman Michael Reuter put together a race committee and got the word out to the sailing community the old fashioned way – by word of mouth. 

The response was impressive. The regatta drew sailors from Narragansett Bay and beyond, including Sail Newport, Greenwich Bay Sailing Association, Pleon Yacht Club, Sachem’s Head Yacht Club, Wianno Yacht Club, and Plymouth Yacht Club, to name a few.

The regatta was open to all classes, but after registration, three classes emerged – Optimist (green and champ), Laser Radial and 420. Each class featured superstar sailors flexing their muscles, new racers getting their feet wet in the sport, and everything in between. 

The 420 and Laser Radial classes each had four starts despite two general recalls for each class as the wind picked up, and the Optis (champ and green) had three races. A stern warning from the race committee, including the threat of the black flag from PRO David Materne, got racing back on track. (Had the threat of thunderstorms not loomed, each fleet would have had more starts, but with the tow-in nature of the event, the race committee was conservative.)

Optis

Thirty-one Optis competed, including eight in the unscored green fleet. Red Fleeter Roman Fechner from Sail Newport took Opti Champ Fleet top honors, winning two of the three races and finishing the day with five points. Campbell Carr, of Ida Lewis Yacht Club, and Gus Fichtenholtz, of Sachem’s Head Yacht Club, were second and third in Opti Red fleet, with 17 and 23 points, respectively. 

In Opti Blue, Declan Walsh, of Sail Newport, took first (and second place overall) with 11 points, followed closely by Barrington Yacht Club’s own Duffy Macaulay with 15 points (and third place overall). Kent Yaoita, of Pleon Yacht Club, took third in Blue Fleet with 19 points.

In Opti White, Madeleine Carr, of Ida Lewis Yacht Club, took top honors. Notably, Carr tied her older brother and red fleeter Campbell Carr with 17 points, but won the tie-breaker due to a win in the second race.  Cal Naperotic and Ben Reuter, both of Barrington Yacht Club, took second and third place in White Fleet with scores of 24 and 28 points, respectively.

420s

In the 26-boat, 420 class, Charlie Wilkinson and Anna Brzezinski, from Pleon Yacht Club, took first place with 10 points, winning the second and third races of the day. Close on their heels were Edgewood Yacht Club’s Georgia Shuster and Sadie Martiesian with 12 points. Neala Bijari and Mara Oancea, from Greenwich Bay Sailing Association, won the first race and took third overall with 18 points.

Laser Radial

The Laser Radial class boasted 13 boats and many familiar faces on the New England junior racing scene. With competitive and vocal starts and finishes, it was a fun fleet for spectators to watch.

Tyler Bergendahl, of Ram Island Yacht Club, convincingly took first place in the fleet, with six points, having won three of the four races. Abbey Grandin, of Sail Newport, won the third race of the day and took second place overall with 12 points. Gavin Hudson, of Pleon Yacht Club, took third with nineteen points.