The Newport Regatta is a premiere One-Design event hosted out of Sail Newport that has been going on for as long as I can remember. I can recall sailing 420s as a young junior sailor, or competing in the Laser fleet with 4.7 and Radial rigs. It was one of those awesome events that everyone looked forward to and everyone had fun at! Not another one of those junior sailing events, but one where you could be sailing against someone could be 14 or 40.
This year I wasn't competing, I was shooting! There were an incredible 5 divisions covering everything from the classic 12 Metres to Swan 42s, Stars and 505s, to performance catamarans like the F-18 all the way down to the Laser, Sunfish and Byte CII dinghies. It was a spectacular sight with race circles spread all across the East Passage from north of Gould Island to two miles offshore of Brenton Reef.
Saturday of racing saw just about no breeze whatsoever, with cool dense fog struggling against a hot sun, the seabreeze just never filled in and we saw every wind direction from North, West and East. Sunday of racing was much better, with a nice gentle North Easterly in the morning and a seabreeze coming in lightly around noontime. It never really got above 10-12 knots inside, and started to die down around 2pm, but at least there was something to get these guys moving!
I only covered Divisions 3 & 4, including the dinghy circle and the catamaran/performance circle. This meant Lasers, Sunfish, Byte CII, 2.4 Metre (a scaled down single handed 12 Metre), Vanguard 15 on one circle, and F-18s, A-Catamarans, 49ers and VXOnes on the other cirlce. My little 18 foot photoboat couldn't quite handle the 3 foot rollers and chop outside of the harbor, with strong breezes and current to boot, so I had to skip the other circles with Swan 42s, Farr 30s, Stars, 505s, Vipers and more. But we did try first, and we managed to get past Castle Hill out to R2 before turning back around to the more protected harbor. (Note: When circles are being sailed almost at Point Judith or two miles offshore of Brenton Reef, bring a boat that can handle offshore conditions.)
So here are a few of my favorites but more can be seen in the Viewing Gallery on my website! Enjoy!
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