Buoy Room: 26 sail in Heatherton race

Yachts from Sag Harbor, Greenport and Shelter Island competed in the Shelter Island Yacht Club Heatherton Trophy Handicap Race on Sunday, July 3. The race, which began in Orient Harbor, ran for slightly more than four hours.

Twenty-six boats sailed through Greenport’s channel past Jennings Point to a mark set in Noyac Bay. Once they rounded the mark, they reversed their course and finished in Pipes’ Cove. Although the weather was cool and overcast, the competitors took advantage of the strong current leaving Orient Harbor into Peconic Bay and completed the beating leg quickly.

Separated into four divisions based upon each boat’s overall size, the race was scored using the PHRF handicap system. It allows the varying types of boats to compete fairly. Their “corrected time” was calculated by the Race Committee. Often boats that cross the finish line in the middle of their division rank higher than faster competitors.

Division One was comprised of 11 boats. Many of their skippers opted to race the return leg with spinnakers. Bravo, a J-111, skippered by S. Ward, was the first yacht to cross the finish line with a total elapsed time of 2:33. Following less than one minute later was Renegade, an X-442 captained by J. Pribor. Team Tonic, a Beneteau 42 sailed by E. Sanders, rounded out the top three finishers one minute after Renegade.

For the duration of the first leg, Renegade and Team Tonic raced neck-and-neck. However, on PHRF corrected time, the top finishers were One Ring Circus, a Quest 30 skippered P. Pomerantz, Team Tonic and Licorice, a J-100 skippered by J. Sommi.

The closely contested J-105s all finished less than two minutes apart; the final two J-100s, Zora, steered by F. Zorovich, and Wave Train, sailed by R. Bockman, also had less than a minute separating them.

The four boats that encompassed Division Two also sailed their final leg with spinnakers. Eighty Four, an Etchells captained by C. Langendal, placed first with an elapsed time of 2:49 and final corrected time of 2:47. Following them in second place, Jul Bocken, a C&C 35 MK11 sailed by J. Eklund, finished the race four minutes later with an elapsed time of 2:53 and a corrected time of 2:50. Rounding out the top three, Varuna, skippered by P. Dinkel, completed the race in 3:06; with the applied PHRF score the corrected time was down to 2:54.

In Division Three, eight boats competed without spinnakers. The captain of Dimension Z, a Barberis/Sh 42, G. Zinger was extremely pleased with the boat’s top placement. He was especially grateful that “nothing broke and nobody was bleeding” when they crossed the finish line on the Barberis. He attributed their excellent elapsed time of 2:59 to the strong flooding tide and steady wind.

For the Jennings Point to Noyac Bay leg, Zinger was concerned about their contender, Wyvern¸ a J-29 that placed second. It was their corrected time of 3:07, only five minutes later, that kept him concerned. In the Fourth Division, Ol’ Bear, a Pearson 303 skippered by D. Reich, finished first; Buccaneer, a Stuart Knockabout captained by R. Tiernan, followed in second place. The final boat of the division, Andrea, a Hinckley 40 sailed by W. Caccese, rounded out the division in third place.