HPYC Sunfish Racing 2024 Recap

Another wonderful summer goes into the books, and this one came with changes! Karen Anderson Smith is the winner of the Abercrombie & Fitch Trophy for 2024, edging Jack Campo for the season. Congratulations, Karen!! Cesar Brea (that would be me) won the Independence Day regatta and the Anderson Trophy (Labor Day). We welcomed Jon Beery as our guest and he won our First (July) series, which included some epic tacking duels. (Karen took the Second (August) series. We were fortunate to be supported by newcomer Fiona McCarthy, who capably handled race committee duties - thank you Fiona! (And thanks to Jen Strano for referring her!) Also, we had multiple folks representing HPYC at regional regattas in Barrington and Wequaquet Lake, as well as at the Hyannis Regatta. Now onto the fall and winter. Several of us will be active in local and regional (and maybe national) regattas.

This year I won't try to be poetic about how self-actualizing all this is, because words can't really do that justice. Instead, a few things I learned, or was reminded of.

One was some helpful advice from Stuart Walker from his classic "The Tactics of Small Boat Racing". Walker says that in light air you focus on strategy -- which side of the course will have the better wind? In medium air, you focus on tactics -- how should you position yourself against other boats? In heavy air, you focus on boat handling -- how do you keep your own boat upright and driving? Of course all three matter, but this simple framework helped me to organize my thinking about how to approach things.

A second lesson was about starting. Sailing in some big regattas with 40-90 boats in the past couple of years, I learned to position myself on the starting line better. Doing so is the first step toward a top-third finish. I figured out how to carve a spot and protect it aggressively. But Jon Beery and Tracey Taylor both slammed me in a couple of races this summer with starting tactics drawn more from match racing, in which you don't set up first, but rather tail and then luff or block another boat. Lesson - in smaller fleets, with competitors who will make you closely, you manage others as much as yourself.

Jon also brought us a taste of Laser racing, showing us boat-to-boat downwind tactics that I will take to heart for next summer.

Looking ahead to next year: please join us! All of the above may sound intense but our races are short and very friendly, and the Sunfish is truly a boat for everyone. Racing is how you get better, and everyone in the fleet is a willing advisor. We have boats you can try - thanks to Brian McManus, new to our fleet this year, and the new owner of one of our club Sunfish. (Our policy is try a club boat for a season, if you like it and want to continue, they are available for sale at very reasonable prices. The proceeds get re-cycled into maintaining the fleet.)

A special thanks to Jack Campo, who once again kept scores - it turns out it's a non-trivial set of calculations. Thanks so much, Jack!

See you all next summer!