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Storm Trysail Club Block Island Race Week XXII Presented by Rolex

Sailors on Their Mark for Traditional Racing and
Rolex US-IRC National Championship

BLOCK ISLAND, R.I. (June 17, 2007) -- Racing starts tomorrow for one of the nation's most revered sailing competitions: the Storm Trysail Club's Block Island Race Week presented by Rolex. Staged in odd-numbered years since 1965, this is the biennial event's 22nd running, with five days of racing scheduled for 183 entrants on three racing circles. Enhancing the mix of IRC, PHRF and One-Design sailing is the debut of the Rolex US-IRC National Championship where only one of 69 teams in 7 classes will win this first-ever title.

The smallest boat in the IRC Super Zero class, Decision, a TP52, is one of the most serious about taking home the IRC crown and the Rolex Steel and Platinum Yachtmaster timepiece that goes with it. "It's exciting," said Decision's owner Stephen Murray of New Orleans, La. "We like to be either at the top or the bottom of our class as far as rating, preferring the top end for light air and the bottom end for heavy air. In this event there is only T-Squared (a Davidson 52, owned by Chuck Townsend of Middletown, R.I.) with a lower rating. We are fast downwind in breezes, and we frequently are the same on our time with bigger boats. Upwind we hold our own. If the conditions are right, we'll be in the hunt, but it will be tough to beat Blue Yankee (a Reichel Pugh 66)." Murray added that Decision is also in the hunt for the US-IRC Gulf Stream Series, for which Block Island Race Week is a qualifier.

Blue Yankee, a relatively new boat owned by Bob and Farley Towse of Stamford, Conn., was purpose-built for IRC and seems to be the favored in this class. Long-time Race Week competitor and defending champion Tom Hill (Puerto Rico) has returned with his Titan 12, a Reichel Pugh 75, and the class is rounded out by Jim Swartz's (Park City, Utah) Swan 60 Moneypenny and John Brim's (New York, N.Y.) Reichel/Pugh 55 Rima2.

For all its venerability as a test of skill, Block Island Race Week is also packed with tradition and sports a theme of young and old sailing together. Mort Weintraub (Larchmont, N.Y.), owner of Troubador, an Express 37 sailing in IRC class 5, is one of the oldest sailors here at age 75, but crewing for him is Andrew Mollerus (Larchmont, N.Y.), an Opti sailor who is possibly the youngest sailor at age 13. "This is my 21st Troubador season (3rd boat), and I've done every Block Island Race Week (17) since 1987, always with some kids sailing for me, which seems to work out nicely. In fact Jamie Anderson, a Connecticut College sailor, who has been sailing with me since age 13 or 14, is now steering the boat." Another Express 37, Lora Ann, owned by Richard du Moulin (Larchmont, N.Y.), may be Weintraub's toughest competition. Lora Ann won her class here in 2005.

Making their own history will be the brand new New York Yacht Club Swan 42s sailing as one-designs in IRC class 1. Their first class event was this past spring, but according to class President Paul Zabetakis (Jamestown, R.I.), who will sail his Impetuous against seven other 42s here, "20 signed on before the final drawings were completed, so as a result we have very good early momentum." To keep costs down, the class keeps pros at a minimum (two, but they can't be paid to sail), limits sails to three new ones a year, and marries the best of one-design racing with the ability to cruise.

The NYYC Swan 42 project has been in the works for the past 1 1/2 years, says one of the class founders David Elwell (Newport, R.I.), who is Vice-Commodore of the New York Yacht Club. "It is the seventh or eighth one-design that the New York Yacht Club has developed over its history. A single-minded racing boat has its place in the marketplace, but we wanted something where you could race on Saturday, cruise on Sunday and could be handled by a couple. We didn't want Russell Coutts on one boat and Brad Butterworth on another."

IRC racers won't be the only ones in the limelight, however, as there are six classes of PHRF, including a Navigator's class for non-spinnaker racing, and five classes of one-designs sailing.

Mark Hamlyn (Chatham, Mass.), crew member aboard Tom Burrows's (Brewster, Mass.) Warrior 2, says his team is ready for a tooth-and-nail competition in the J/109 class where 19 boats are competing. "The class is relatively new," said Hamlyn, "but everyone's learning the boat now, so the competition is getting tighter every year." The majority of the boats sailing are fresh off of the J/109 East Coast Championship, where Stephen Tedeschi’s Tastes Like Chicken (St. Petersburg, FL) won. This team is bound to be a strong contender, but they’ll have to beat Rick Lyall’s Storm (Wilton, CT), which took 2nd here in 2005.

Twenty-four J/105s constitute the largest one-design class, while Beneteau 36.7s (7), J/120s (6) and J/44s (6) round out the competition.

“Remarkably, only four of the J/105s are coming to Block for the first time,” says J/105 Class Secretary Nelson Weiderman (Wakefield, R.I.), whose boat Kima will be competing here for her 12th straight year. "Brian Keane’s (Weston, Mass.) Savasana, which finished second in 2005, Damian Emery's (Shoreham, N.Y.) Eclipse, which finished third in ’05, and Joerg Esdorn’s Kincsem (Rye, NY) are all previous winners,” Weiderman noted.

Compliments of Rolex, daily video shows of each day’s racing, produced by Annapolis-based T2Productions, will be shown and broadcast on-line each night by 9 p.m. on www.t2p.tv. Race Week sponsors are Rolex, Jeep, Mt. Gay, Caithness Energy, Vineyard Vines, Lewmar, B&G, Gill, Hall Spars, J Boats, the Rhode Island State Yachting Committee, Sailing World, UKHalsey Sailmakers, West Marine, Gowrie, Barden & Brett, Summit Performance Yachts, WindCheck Magazine, Sailing World, Heineken and Yellow Tail wine

Race administration and scoring is by Yacht Scoring (www.yachtscoring.com). For more information, visit www.blockislandraceweek.com

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