RC 44 #22 sails in Leukemia Cup in Newport

I am sitting here at my desk, the morning after the Leukemia Cup race and Fund Raising events. I believe that our first race went well. The RC 44 was a pleasure to sail. I was very privileged to have on my crew Gary Jobson, tactician, John Gluek, main, Steve Benjamin, trim, Scotty Murray, trim, Rob Ouellette, grinder, Peter Henderson, pit and Dave Reed, bow. They all did a great job. Not only in the sailing but special thanks in helping to get the boat put together and race ready.

My report on the race goes like this. Great start, sailed well to the top mark at Beaver Tail. We sailed right into the 2 classes that started ahead of us, IRC and Swan 42’s, 10 and 5 minute leads. The start was in about 12 knots and then it dropped out to 7-10 knots against tide. As we all were just learning the ins and outs of the RC for the very first time, we could have sailed a bit faster with a bigger jib up. The cross over was at 11 knots so we went for the J2. On the run, in 10-16 knots we sailed quickly through everyone except Aera, a IRC 55 footer that has won many races around the world. At the top mark they were 11 minutes ahead, at the bottom, 12. But they did start 10 minutes ahead and had no traffic to deal with. Anyway, we rounded the bottom mark 12 minutes ahead for the first Swan 42, and about 18 ahead of the first Melges 32. Hard to see who was who, really as they were over a mile and half behind. On the downwind leg, as the wind filled from behind, we still sailed away doing 13+ knots in 15 knots of wind. Even in the 10 knots of wind we were sailing at 10+ knots.

On the way back, upwind, in 12-16 knots, with the right jib up this time, we sailed fast, but it was in the last 5 minutes of the race, we found the trim that lit the boat up. We jumped .5 of a knot and the boat took off. The learning curve is very steep and the RC just keeps telling you to work harder. I wish we had just one more day. Anyway, we corrected out 4th behind 3 Melges 32’s. They were over 23 minutes back in a 17 mile race. With just a bit more time in the boat, I believe we would be more than competitive with our rating.

Now, for the best news, we won the first place trophy for most donations of any boat. Our combined efforts raised over $15000. Scotty has been fund raising at this regatta for over 15 years. His fund raising efforts ( Unplugged Racing) added another 10,000+ to our RC 44 team pot. So our grand total combination was over $25,000. I want to mention here that Scotty’s has raised over $250,000, over the years working with the LC Cup. What a star.

The RC 44 has made a splash here in Newport. Next week Sir Russell will be here to show the boat off to many of you. I hope you all could make it and have a great time. We have one deposit on a boat and hopefully another tomorrow. Our goal is 6-10 boats and I believe we have a very good shot at that.


First potential client's comments on the RC 44

RC 44 sailing sea trials in Newport, RI
Bill Black photo

I have been here in Newport getting the new RC 44 #22 in the water. She arrived 2 weeks ago at Newport Shipyard from Hungary. We were able to get it sailing a few days ago. Last Tuesday Michael Dominguez brought his crew down for a sail. We tried to race in the Tuesday Night race but it was cancelled because of some thunder. We went out anyway and the next day Michael wrote to me:

Dee:

I really appreciate the oportunity to sail the boat. It was fun to sail and has the performance characteristics that I enjoy. While nor overly complicated is also appears to offer a lot of technical tweaking opportunities that will help accelerate my learning curve over time.

Best

Michael

We hope to get our US Fleet started in a couple of weeks when Russell Coutts will be here when we have a private presentation to a number of potential buyers. We will show to our clients what the boat and class is all about, from the shear fun of sailing the boat to the very well run regattas and Formula 1 of One Design Racing.

Dee