NEWS & EVENTS | NOTICIAS & EVENTOS
NYYC’s 167th Annual Regatta Text by STUART STREULI, NYYC Director of Communications. Images by NANCY BLOOM
F
or the skipper of an amateur sailing team, there are few things more comforting than getting on the boat for the first big regatta of the summer and looking at all the same faces from the previous season. If that previous season also happened to end with a win in the biggest regatta, well, then it’s probably going to be a long regatta for the competition. Such was the case for the Melges IC37 fleet at 167th edition of the New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta. Pacific Yankee, co-owned by Drew Freides and Bill Ruh and sailing with the same crew that won the class’s North American Championship last October, was nearly untouchable in the regatta’s two-day weekend series, winning two of four races and taking first overall by seven points. “It was just a fantastic team effort,” says Ruh, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who helmed the boat for this regatta. “And that was what this regatta was all about, to get the team sailing well again after so much time away, and to see if we could continue to get faster in all conditions.” After a long offseason, which followed the COVID-shortened 2020 sailing season, it’s no surprise there was a lot of enthusiasm on the water for the Annual Regatta, which was sponsored by Hammetts Hotel, Safe Harbor Marinas and Helly Hansen. Boats were crowding the starting line in all classes, and nowhere was the intensity as high as the Melges IC37 class.
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