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2017 IODWCA Fleet Reports

BERMUDA

The 2017 sailing season will be remembered for the awesome spectacle of the America’s Cup in Bermuda waters. It did come with a cost however of having to share the Great Sound with the flying AC 50’s and in the case of the Bermuda International Invitational Regatta we had to move the regatta into the Little Sound. For the minor inconvenience it was well worth it.

The Bermuda IOD Fleet sailing season in 2017 consisted of five Saturday race days and twenty-one Wednesday night races. The participation was lower than past years with the Saturday windward / leeward races getting between three and five boats and the Wednesday night “around the cans” PHRF racing surprisingly getting very few regular participants. Overall, we had eight of the fourteen IOD’s out racing for local events this year. This is down from twelve last year.

In May we had eleven visiting teams and two local teams compete for the Vrengen Gold Cup. The regatta was, as is expected a resounding success with our visitors and locals enjoying five days of competitive racing. Thanks as always to those who make this regatta a success year after year. In 2018 the RBYC is going to take over the running of the regatta which will help lighten the workload of the committee but is not expected to diminish the quality of the event which our competitors have come to expect.

The RBYC November Regatta was a success this year as we were able to get in a full slate of races. Participation from overseas remains constant as we have developed a few repeat competitors from North East Harbor and Manhattan. The local participation unfortunately was down from 2016 and I trust this to be just an anomaly due to the America’s Cup and the numbers will return in 2018.

Looking into the future, 2018 looks to be a busy sailing season. The highlight has to be the return of the Gold Cup Match Racing Regatta which is slated for May 2018 immediately after Race Week. The challenge for us as a class is to have the IOD’s turned around quickly from one regatta to the next. The Committee is going to be looking for assistance for both regattas and if you are able to help please approach us. No offers will be refused!

Lastly my thanks go to my fellow committee members who work tirelessly for our class.

Patrick Cooper
Bermuda IOD Class President

CHESTER
Zephyr II being launched.

This has been another growth year for the Chester IOD fleet. Lots of good things have happened over the past 12 months. Over the Winter, Shawn Mulrooney and South Shore Marine boat works completed a new fiberglass IOD using the class moulds. She has been called “Zephyr II” in recognition of its lead keel and many other parts from the original “Zephyr” used in the building process. This will give us 12 boats and will form the basis for Chester hosting the IOD Championship in 2020. In addition to producing the first fiberglass IOD to be built in North America for over 10 years, Shawn has also contracted with an aluminum spar manufacturer to produce spars and booms at a reasonable cost which will ensure stability for spar and boom replacement for our IOD fleets.

The man who builds IODs also enjoys racing in them. Shawn represented the Chester fleet in the Bacardi Keelboat Regatta in Bermuda held over 4 days in the Great Sound, in November. 12 boats participated with 6 locals and 6 overseas competitors. However, the weather gods did not cooperate and 2 of the 3 days were blown out. Shawn finished a creditable 5th with only the local Bermudians ahead of him.

Welcome to the family!
L-R: L Galbiati, R Thompson, M Fortenbaugh.

In early March 2017, Luigi Galbiati, John LaGrass, Gerry Dolezar and Dough Witter from the fledging Manhattan Yacht Club IOD fleet visited us in Chester. They came to see “Zephyr II” and to meet members of our fleet who showed our MYC visitors what Nova Scotia had to offer. Our visitors saw a number of our wooden and fiberglass IODs, visited Lunenburg and the Nova Scotia Maritime Museum in Halifax, enjoyed a get-together with our fleet members one evening and had a lobster feast dinner on their last night in Chester. The MYC have already acquired 3 IODs for their fleet. STOP PRESS. I have just been told by MYC Commodore Mike Fortenbaugh that the Manhattan Yacht Club have purchased Zephyr II thus increasing their fleet to 4. Shawn will be starting a second new-build in September.

Although our current racing season has barely gotten underway in Chester, our sailors have been very active representing our fleet in overseas regattas. Ted Murphy also represented Chester in Bermuda this Spring. It was a great week of racing with moderate winds and good competition. In the end, Ted won the overall trophy for the week, the “Vrengen Gold Cup”. Next up on the IOD regattas calendar was the Nantucket Invitational in late June. Ted once again represented Chester and enjoyed a successful weekend on Nantucket; he won the event!

Ted Murphy and crew in Restless.

This August, Peter Wickwire will be representing our Chester Fleet at the World IOD championships in North East Harbour We wish him well in this first IOD championship he is attending. Shawn Mulrooney will be doing the North Americas in Fisher’s Island in September. We are looking forward to another successful season for all of us here in Nova Scotia.

Please visit ChesterIODFleet on Facebook for pictures and articles on the regattas mentioned above. Our thanks to all our members and supporters in Chester and Indian Point.

Respectfully submitted,
Richard Thompson
Fleet Captain

FISHERS ISLAND

The IOD fleet based at the Fishers Island Yacht Club consists of 11 boats, 10 of which have been racing during the 2017 season. The boats are generally in good racing condition except Kahoutec, which needs work in the off season. Most races take place on Saturdays, starting in June and ending Labor Day Weekend in early September; typically three races are held per day. This year, due to travel schedules and other sailing, racing did not get going until the end of June. The July series was the fleet qualifier for the 2018 Worlds and North Americans and was won by the Norwegian Wood team of Rugg, Rugg, Burnham, Scholle, and Parsons. The August qualifier for Bermuda and Nantucket events was won by the Jester team of Charlie Van Voorhis and Jim Thompson. The fleet continues to attract a good number of young crews – teenagers and college age – and two boats are typically sailed by under-30-year-old skippers. Perhaps the highlight of the summer occurred in early August when the Manhattan Yacht Club came to sail, bringing with them two 12-Meters for a friendly match. Fishers Island was invited to sail one of the 12s while Manhattan teams were invited to sail several IODs.

LONG ISLAND SOUND

The Long Island Sound Fleet spent the spring attempting to reinvigorate its fleet by finding buyers for boats that have been sitting idle or inconsistently chartered for years. This was made more challenging as we began to have competing bids from buyers wanting to form a fleet at the Manhattan Yacht Club located in Jersey City, NJ . At the end of the day Jennifer Miller purchased John McNamara’s “Volunteer,” which was one of the original fiberglass boats built in Norway for Jim Bishop Sr. in 1970. Jennifer’s bright boat, Topaz was bought by a ‘generous soul’ who is donating her to the Northeast Harbor fleet where members of the fleet will refurbish her and sail her there with her fellow woodies. Jim sold his two 1988 vintage boats, “Makai” and “Dark Horse” to John Evans and Zach Horton, respectively. John previously sailed IODs in San Francisco and Northeast Harbor and Zach had been racing Dark Horse with friends who had previously chartered her. Vincent Marshall and his fiancé Sophie Nadkarni were also new to the fleet this summer as charterers of John McNamara’s “Elation.” Vin was introduced to the IODs when he lived in San Francisco and raced with the fleet there. Jim Bishop Jr.’s Boat “Nefarius” was actively sailed mostly by Elliott Wislar, as Jim was busy working weekends finishing a renovation of his recently purchased home in Nantucket. Elliott handily won the qualifier to compete in the Northeast Harbor Worlds and Vin will be representing LIS in the North Americans in Fishers Island. There have been additional inquiries from people wanting to race in our fleet, so stay tuned next season!

Boats which sadly left out our fleet for Jersey City are “White Arrow,” previously owned by Jeff Feehan, Chris Casiraghi’s “Instigator,” GB Bryant’s “Iluka” and Marion Maneker’s “Black Arrow.”

MANHATTAN

We first discovered IODs in November 2016, for the Bacardi Keelboat Regatta, where we were kindly invited to race. We stepped aboard and knew right away what we had been missing all along. By the end of the trip I found myself sitting at the Bar with Rick Thompson and our Commodore Michael Fortenbaugh sketching our next steps to start a fleet that was going to race under the gaze of The Statue of Liberty.

At the time of writing our fleet has reach 5 boats, although one of them is a winter project, requiring extensive work as well as mast and boom.

The most recent addition to our fleet has been Zephyr II, the first new build built in Nova Scotia. We are honored that to have her join our Fleet.

Racing: We have 3 series; spring, summer & fall, and race Thursday evenings and Saturdays all day. Our season begins in mid May and ends Mid October. To date we held 28 races.

We are all victims of the IOD charm – once you step aboard you fall madly in love and nothing else matters. As such, to help grow our fleet we have been trying to get onboard as many sailors as possible.
A recent trip to Fishers allowed just that, where many of our members discovered IODs – everyone that stepped off the boats was star struck, and i would not be surprised if we will see them as fellow owners in the near term. Thank you to Peter Rugg and all the owners who generously donated their time and boats for that fun event!
We also have a couple other initiatives to allow such eye opening experience, in an effort to grow awareness of this great class. One of these is the a year long competition for MYC IOD Bonus Points. This does not affect/change the result of the races, but is rather a separate trophy to incentive teams to have juniors and ladies onboard, extra points if they are driving, and there are also points attributed to people bringing onboard sailors that have not yet been on IODs. This also helps share the community and group feel and everyone is always very excited after races and cant wait to share their experience over a beverage and some food at our club

Our hope is that by the end of this season we will have built enough momentum and excitement amongst our group and hopefully be in a position to order 1 if not 2 more new builds from Nova Scotia.

We are humbled by the great support and friendship we have been shown by all fleets, and look forward to grow strong together for decades to come.

Respectfully submitted,
Luigi Galbiati

OUR FLEET
Black Arrow
Builder Henrik Aas, East Boothbay, Maine, 1974

d’Artagnan
(previously White Arrow II) Built Able, Marine, Maine, 1983

Instigator
Builder Harry Farmer, East Boothbay, Maine, 1978

Iluka
Builder Harry Farmer, East Boothbay, Maine, 1974

Zephyr II
Builder Shawn Mulrooney, South Shore Marine, Nova Scotia, Canada 2017

MARBLEHEAD

Happily, the numbers are up for the 2017 season! Relieved from his tenure as Commodore of the Eastern Yacht Club, Bruce Dyson completed repairs to the garboards on Gypsy and brought her back to the line for the first time in a couple of years. And sad as we all are to miss her bright finish mahogany hull, we are delighted to have Greg Mancusi-Ungaro’s boat back on the line after an extensive refit chez Dyson. And having lost Dick Levine’s boat to Chester, we are delighted to have Desperado join our fun and games after “polite” service on Cape Cod. This is the boat #29 built for Henry Brauer in Northeast Harbor and stopped over for several years in Fishers Island before losing some of her racing hardware by her most recent owner. Joe Schwartz and Kevin Chesley have been active since Race Week as they try to figure out what’s missing to get her properly kitted out again. Finally, Norwegian Petter Etholm has bought the venerable Pompano, and while her refit has been “methodical” this summer, we look forward to having that family on the line with us next summer. Bottom line: we have grown back from 8 boats last summer to 12 this year. Each raced during Race week, though never all at once. We were delighted by a cameo appearance by Danielle and Jeff Lawson with a crew of three children for part of Marblehead Race Week in Greg’s Woodie. Rough weather sent them scurrying off to Maine for the rest of their vacation, but not before showing her transom to many of us in the early going!

It has seemed we had a choice of rough weather or no weather at all this summer. The almighty has chosen Saturday as the day of the week to send lines of thunder squalls along the coast alternating with air too light to complete a race. It’s like when your baseball team scores 16 runs in one game. You cheer their success, but wonder if they might save a few of those runs for the next day.

Our first series, starting right after Memorial Day, saw a battle between Widnall and Morrison, tuning up for their appearance in Northeast Harbor later in the summer. Timmy Dittrich poked his nose in occasionally to keep them honest. Only three races were completed in the second series (July), but by that time most of the boats had gotten in the water and to the racing line. Dyson’s Gypsy claimed her first two races after her sabbatical and Peter Stahle grabbed second. Following Widnall in third it was gratifying to see Steve Barrett in fourth after several years at the back of the fleet.

Marblehead Race Week, (AKA NOOD) also lost a race day due to extreme weather conditions. But the top three finishers were the same: Dyson, Stahle, Widnall. In all eleven boats started a race in this series. Comparing fleets, we have had more boats competing than the Etchells this summer. The J-70s had 30 boats edging out the Rhodes 19s for the largest fleet at Race Week.

Marblehead is a competitive place to build a fleet. We are not even the oldest class in town; the Town Class began in 1936, and due to their flat bottom centerboard configuration have been able to string together about 20 moorings just above the mud flats at the head of the harbor to rebuild their fleet. For new IOD owners it isn’t even a guarantee that you can get a mooring in Salem Harbor around the corner, so our target of new customers is almost restricted to people who have a mooring in the main harbor already. Despite these challenges, 2017 has shown a nice resurgence of numbers and tight competition up and down the standings.

One thrill each year is participation in the Corinthian Classic Regatta. This is a pursuit race where we start about midway through the list of 60 boats, chasing a Herreshoff Rozinante yawl and trying to stay in front of classics like 8 and 12 meters and a New York 40. At the end of Sunday’s race after 17 miles of sailing twice around a triangle course we finished overlapped with Tim Dittrich. Now that’s racing!

Herb Motley, Fleet Captain

NANTUCKET

The NIODFA began the 2017 season with 14 boats on the line for the Nantucket Invitational. Local teams were crewed by 5 Nantucket syndicates and 1 boat was crewed by the Nantucket High School Sailing Team. The off-island teams represented Northeast Harbor, Manhattan Yacht Club, Marblehead, San Francisco, Gibson Island, Fishers Island and Chester, the winning team.

The NIODFA has been working to build participation, as three syndicates are sailing sporadically. We are using the Wednesday night PHRF racing to host local sailors from the high school sailing team and the yacht club race teams and the senior instructor staffs in hopes of building interest in weekly racing on Sundays as well. The program began last year, and we are crewing 2 to 3 boasts each week this season.

Peter McCausland, founder of the NIODFA and syndicate owner, was inducted into the World Class Hall of Fame.

This year we have had a team at Bermuda Race Week. Two teams will race in the Worlds in Northeast Harbor and one team will represent Nantucket on Fishers Island in the North Americans.

We are testing raised floorboards. The belief is that raised floorboards will make getting up and down from the rail will be a shorter distance and crewing safer overall. We will evaluate the association’s comments in the fall. We will be ordering new mainsails for all boats this fall. The current mains will have served well for six seasons. All boats have been equipped with lightweight spinnaker sheets but acquiring digital compasses have been put on hold for further discussion.

The Celebrity Invitational Regatta this August is fully subscribed. It will feature 14 professional tacticians who, for a fee, will assist the skippers and their crews. Many of the skippers are from off-island and new to the IOD. The event benefits Nantucket Community Sailing, and the exposure to IOD sailing benefits our class overall.

Respectfully Submitted,

Geoff Verney
Fleet Captain

NORTHEAST HARBOR

The NEH IOD Class has had another very successful 2017 season. We had 17 boats participate in the July series which totaled 15 races and we had 19 boats participate in the 12 race August series. The winner of the July series was the co-skipper team of John Henry and Chad Thieken on Gambler. The winner of the August series was John Henry on Gambler.
One of the highlights of the season has been the return and expansion of youth sailors in our Class. Sailors from the local high school team, the numerous summer sailing schools and college sailors from near and far have been active in both summer series and, in several cases, have showed the old dogs new tricks. This bodes very well for the future health of our Class.
The NEH Class is also thrilled to be hosting the 2017 World Championships which start August 20th. We will have 20 boats on the line for this week-long regatta and have planned a full schedule of social events. All of us in NEH are looking forward to renewing old friendships and creating plenty of new ones with our fellow IOD enthusiasts around the world. Late August on the Great Harbor of MDI usually produces great weather and racing conditions so we are looking forward to a fantastic event.

2017 also marked the return of a long lost friend of the NEH IOD Class – #20 Magic Bus. The Bus was lovingly restored by team David Schoeder and relaunched in June. She looks beautiful and on will be proudly on display in Gilpatrick Cove for all to see as she will be part of the fleet for the 2017 World Championships.

Respectfully submitted,
John Roberts
2017 NEH IOD Captain

NORWAY

Inner Oslofjord / Outer Oslofjord – combined Fleet report July 2017

Half way through the season before summer holydays we have the results for the first of the two qualifying regattas Hankö Raceweek.
Standings so far: 1. Fred Olsen 16 points 2. Tormod Lie 18 points 3. Martin Rygh 19 points (low score). The Class Championship in September will be intense and nerve wrecking for the boats in top of the leaderboard, so may the best crew win.

IOD’s in inner and outer Oslofjord uses Wednesday afternoon club races and Weekend races for training against other IOD´s along with modern boats after the Norwegian handicap system, and the IOD´s is usually found in the upper part of the result lists.
N64 and N65 was sold to Sweden before the season started, and some of the boats have new owners. The fleet has decreased in numbers but we are working hard to engage the rest of the Norwegian fleet to participate in the training and qualification series. Hopefully we will succeed, but it will take some time to get the new crews going.
Best regards, Tormod Lie President IOD Fleet Norway

ST MAWES

Just two IODs, Wild Goose and Kyla, have been actively racing in St Mawes in 2017. Sanchia returned from an extended winter refit too late to take part in this year’s racing calendar. Pirate and Happy Go Lucky are for sale and are not presently on the water and Mitzi is now used for cruising.

With just two boats actively racing during the summer, the competition was essentially a series of closely fought match races between Wild Goose and Kyla.

We are looking forward to a more active 2018. We expect to welcome a new addition to the fleet. An IOD named Stallion is currently being restored in Falmouth by Avia Willment, a renowned 6m and 8m yachtswoman. Like most of the IODs in St Mawes, Stallion is another refugee from the old Scottish IOD fleet. With Sanchia also back in sailing trim, we may – if everything goes to plan – have at least four IODs present on the start line next season.

SWEDEN

Half way thru the season of 2017 has given us some nice sailing and unfortunately a couple of cancelled races due to hard wind. Normally are we 8-10 IOD’s on the starting line since the fleet has grown, one boat are still looking for new crew.
IOD Fleet Sweden are partners in organizing a distance race of 27 Nm around Pater Noster Light house, the race started in perfect conditions in good winds and gasping sun, half way thru the race the wind changed and the sun disappeared. It became a cold and rough sailing for the IOD´s.

Unfortunately so did we have to cancel the North Sea Cup, in Norway most sailor are busy with other sailing that weekend so they had a hard time gathering crews. The Invited crews from England and US had also trouble to find the time to come and race.
We will try to get some crews from Norway to our end of season sailing day/barbecue instead.

Again this year have we had a crew representing our fleet in Bermuda race week and two crews will be representing us in the worlds.

This year the sailing plans are involving a bit more than 20 races for qualifying to the worlds plus some other races, so we will bee quite busy sailing. Our season is divided in one series before the holidays and one series after the holidays, we have just started the second series with a great sailing with 9 IOD´s on the line.
This Saturday we will sail the race around Tjörn Island, 27 Nm in the archipelago of the west coast.

Best regards, Reine Larsson, President, IOD Fleet Sweden

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