By Rick Thompson

Preparations are well advanced for the IOD Chester North Americans, August 30 to September 2. There will be 10 competitors from the various North American fleets attending the event. The current North American IOD champion John Roberts, of Northeast Harbor, heads up the list. John and his team have won the title an unprecedented three years in a row!

John will have a lot of competition. At the top of the list will be Kevin Farrar from Fishers Island, a past world champion and past winner of Bermuda Race Week. Equally strong in recent years is Patrick Cooper, the local Bermuda fleet champion.

Chris Gould recently won the Nantucket invitational in June 2018 and will be someone to reckon with for the event as he has fine-tuned his game! San Francisco has two competitors for the Chester North Americans, Rich and Mark Pearce, who are the San Francisco fleet champions, and Paul Zupan, who has represented them on numerous occasions in IOD regattas.

Elvind Karlson from the Manhattan Yacht Club will be sailing his first international IOD regatta and is looking forward to participating. Also from the New York area and representing the Long Island Sound fleet is John Evans, a recent addition to the fleet; this as well is his first international competition and he is hoping to do well. Ian Morrison will be representing Marblehead. Ian has competed in Bermuda some years ago and this is his second international regatta in the last two years.

Our social program is set and boats readied for the regatta. Colin Mann from Lunenburg will be the RO for the event. He is very experienced, having been the RO for the Sonar North Americans last year. Everyone in Chester is excited about having our North Americans IOD fleet participants come to Chester to sample the Nova Scotia hospitality and to experience the great sailing in Mahone Bay.