Apollo 11 Shoots the Moon at 34-Boat Shields Nationals
Starting the second race on Day 1 of the 2022 Nationals. There was plenty of room on the starting line unless you got delayed coming around the signal boat!
Newport, R.I. (Sept. 11, 2022)— Apollo 11, the oldest boat in a 34-boat fleet of Shields racing outside of Newport’s Brenton Reef, won a six-race series yesterday to capture the Class’s 58th National Championship by one point. Skipper Andy Green, of Newport, sailed with fellow owners Joe Bardenheier and Dale Harper, as well as Jon Howland and Geordie Shaver.
Apollo began the final day of the three-day series close behind the Mike Toppa family team in Bomba Charger and Glenn Darden/Bill Shore on Karasalet, and close ahead of Grace, co-skippered by three-time champions John Burnham/Reed Baer. In what could have been the final race of the series, Apollo and Grace pulled well ahead and finished one-two after an extended jibing duel, leap-frogging the others into the top two spots.
Preparing for lift-off at the weather mark, the crew of Apollo 11 (l to r): Andy Green, Joe Bardenheier, Jon Howland, Geordie Shaver, and Dale Harper (not visible).
Working quickly, the Ida Lewis Yacht Club race committee signaled a sixth race starting just before the series time limit of 2pm. In a building seabreeze, the series leaders emerged near the front and traded positions twice with Burnham/Baer on Grace finishing just ahead of Green on Apollo, but without the margin needed to overtake the leader.
“To the moon!” is Green’s motto for what he describes as his team’s “pandemic purchase,” rescuing Hull #11 in 2021 at an auction that could have sent the boat to the scrapyard. “We’ve put in a lot of time and had a lot of fun already with the boat,” he said, “culminating in a hard-fought battle for the win at our home Nationals.” He described summer Shields sailing in Newport as “sailing with friends, against friends, in a very competitive fleet.”
Team Grace led by Dr. Pete Schott (bow) get ready to set.
The turnout for this regatta was well above the norm for the nearly 60-year-old keelboat class, which was designed by Sparkman & Stephens in 1963 for Cornelius Shields of Larchmont, N.Y.; the Class held its first Nationals in 1965. In recent years, championship has typically attracted 15 to 24 boats.
Perhaps encouraged by the easing of the pandemic or the fun of competing in Newport, 14 teams trailered or borrowed boats for the regatta from Edgartown and Marion in Massachusetts; Greenwich, Connecticut; Larchmont, New York; Oxford, Maryland; and Monterey, California.
They were welcomed by 20 local boats from Newport’s Fleet 9, which has increased in size from the low 20s to the low 30s since the beginning of the pandemic and routinely draws 25 boats to the starting line on Wednesday nights. Ida Lewis race committee PRO Peter Gerard felt the fleet was outgrowing the available course areas inside Narragansett Bay and elected to stage the racing in the open but choppier waters of Rhode Island Sound, which also featured a southeasterly storm swell. The starting lines for the 30-foot keelboats were a quarter-mile-long and the upwind legs were close to 1.5 miles—challenging conditions for both locals and visitors.
Two-time national champ Bill Berry (Syrinx) comes off the windward end of the long starting line in good shape.
With Newport boats winning the podium positions, the top finisher among all the travelers was two-time national champ Bill Berry in seventh place (Syrinx), followed by Shields class president Ken Deyett’s Bit~O~Honey in 13th. Both sail in Fleet 10 in Marion, Massachusetts, which will host the 59th Nationals on the breezy, choppy and tide-swept waters of Buzzards Bay next year.
Winners of 2022 event awards included the Sparkman & Stephens Concourse Award to Tom McManus’ Circe(Greenwich, Conn.), the Moore Trophy for top Senior Skipper to Mike Toppa (Bomba Charger, Newport), Junior Skipper Award to Grace Adams (Meander, Newport), and Gordon Benjamin Memorial Newcomer Award to Lindsey Turowski (Sirene, Newport).
Chris Ringdahl (trimming kite) invited Lindsey Turowski to take the helm this season, and Team Sirene (169) finished 12th at the Nationals, winning Lindsey the Gordon L. Benjamin Newcomer Award for the top performance by a first-time skipper at the Shields Nationals.
The Shields Class’s Nationals Regatta dubious achievement award, the Take A Bow Trophy, is a mounted bow section of a Shields that takes two people to lift, and this year it was awarded to Class VP Ron Oard (Glory158) for sailing too far by the lee at the downwind mark and tossing his mainsheet trimmer overboard. Fortunately, as Mitch Kempisty recounted at the awards ceremony, despite being 40 feet behind the boat, he held onto the sheet. Kempisty’s day job is as a rescue swimmer for the Navy and he used his training to good effect. He trimmed the main in at the appropriate time, then swam faster than the boat and “levitated” himself back aboard. “We didn’t lose a place,” he said. But his skipper got the trophy!
Results: https://yachtscoring.com/event_results_cumulative.cfm?eID=14824
August 10: “Listen to Your Crew!”
The fleet splits and 226 leads to the right. SSeaman Photography
In the 7th race of the Summer Series, Team Grace 107 recorded one of our best finishes all summer, despite a mediocre start and picking the wrong side of the first beat. One of the things we did right last night was to get out early and tune up alongside Helen 181 learning in the process not to pull on too much backstay in the 8- to 12-knot breeze.
My biggest mistake was to ignore the collective opinion of Rachel, Pete and Ted, who all agreed we should favor the left on the first beat for better breeze. Instead, Reed and I set a course to the right for the current relief on the way to Taylor Point. You would think I’d know better by now, given that Pete is a weather forecaster, Rachel is a professor of puffology, and Ted is Ted.
To set the stage, the northerly had died during the afternoon and a modest southeasterly breeze was in the PeteCast—our weekly onboard weather service provided by Pete. We had a nearly full moon bringing with it a heavy flood tide, and PRO Bill O’Hanley laid a nice five-leg course with 1.25-mile beats, starting to the west of Gould Island with the windward mark just north of the Pell Bridge. While 1-mile beats have resulted in pileups at Mark 1 earlier this summer, the longer beat combined with the flood tide effectively lengthened the upwind leg and helped minimize traffic, despite our 25-boat turnout for the evening.
We came off the right end of the line, tacked, and took one stern, heading right with Team Apollo 11 to windward and Team Ultimate Pressure 226 to leeward. The latter gradually came up in front of us as we reached the corner. Both boats tacked out for the mark, and we went closer to the point for current relief, as did several boats close behind us.
We looked super smart until we were headed about 20 degrees by the strength of the current, and with the air lightening up, we didn’t come close to laying the mark on one tack. Team 181, which had taken the pin-end start and worked the left, rounded first, close ahead of Team 254, the series leader.
165 and 107 chase the lead pack of boats on the first run. SSeaman Photography
Given our poor summer track record of getting around weather marks cleanly, we tacked back to port, overstood, and rounded in about 10th place with Bill Rommel’s team in Eagle 165. We noticed Tinky 258 and Karasalet 74 each did a circle after hitting the mark, so apparently our conservatism was justified.
At the end of the run, despite a crowd of boats ahead of us choosing the eastern gate, there was no question about our plan—I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice! We followed the group around and footed for the Newport side of the Bay in their dirty air. Gradually, those ahead of us tacked while, encouraged by our wind team, I kept going. The breeze was easing off across the course, and despite the windscreen of a rather large barge that passed ahead of us , we found great breeze and a good shift as we tacked for the mark.
Team Folly 143 and Team Tinky 258 lead Team Grace 107 to the favored left side on the 2nd beat. SSeaman Photography
In the meantime, the right side and even the center of the course had caved in with less breeze, and we found ourselves in fourth place behind 181, 254, and Team Bomba Charger 156 as we rounded the new weather mark, set 5 degrees left of the old one. We were all well ahead of the fifth-place boat.
The final two legs of the race were uneventful, except that we snuck by Mike Toppa’s Team 156 downwind, while they were belatedly striking their ensign!
Congratulations to Team Helen 181 for their bullet and to Team Aeolus 254 for their 5-point Summer Series win over Helen and Tinky. Reviewing the scoresheet afterwards, I noticed that 254 was the only boat to avoid recording a double-digit finish throughout the series…and every other boat had at least two races in double digits!
Many thanks to our race committee for managing the equivalent of a national championship fleet every week!
—John Burnham
July 20: “In All Its Glory”
I walked down the dock to meet our crew last night and was initially greeted with the broad smile and hearty laughter of a long-standing (I try not to use the word “old” any more) friend, Geordie Shaver. Soon realizing that he was this week’s “fill in” on bow it became clear that this was not going to be any ordinary night of sailing. As he quickly noted “I have come out of retirement just to race on the 11.” True or not, this was just the start of what proceeded to be a series of very jocular comments from this infamous Emmy Winning and America’s Cup Sailor that kept us all in stitches through to the end of dinner.
As we sailed off the mooring I pulled out the latest boat maintenance project, the addition of a new ensign and staff. After a bit of debate about whether it was big enough, its long-awaited presence firmly fastened to the stern made Andy Green our UK born funny accented Skipper gleam with pride. “I should really get my naturalization process under way” he said. He then more formally introduced me to his 16-year-old nephew Josh who lives in the UK and came to visit his Uncle Andy for a few days. Josh was eager to help and we all soon came to learn that his father is the “Shadow Secretary” in the Labor Party and could in fact be the next Mayor of London. “Hah” I thought, “what a cast of characters we have tonight.”
From left: Joe Bardenheier, Geordie Shaver, Josh “The Brit”, John Howland, Andy Green
As we got out to the starting line with the other boats it seemed as if everyone was in an especially good mood. Maybe it was just because this was the only spot with respite from the scorching heat on land, but there appeared to be a greater exchange of waves and “hellos” among the boats than other evenings. I started to realize, as I looked around at this group of fine friends, that I had known and sailed with and against many of them for over 40 years. It included Jr. Sailing and High School competitors, College Teammates and others with whom I have shared the waters and crossed tacks with from New England to England on little boats and big in Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. Here was a group of sailors who collectively share an immense list of Regional, National and World Championship wins, all gathered Wednesday night on the beautiful waters of The Narragansett Bay to share in their passion while racing an elegant one-design sailboat designed 60 years ago. I thought “Wow this is Special.”
As John Howland led our contemplation on the value of going right towards Jamestown or left to the Navy War College, I couldn’t help but think of my father who decided to move his young family to Newport in 1970. After completing a tour in Vietnam as a Surgeon, the Navy gave him the choice of finishing his medical residency in San Diego CA or Newport RI. Born and bred in St. Louis Missouri, he and my mother had very little exposure to the ocean and had never sailed, but they soon understood its wonderful merits. My father became close friends with the infamous local sailing legend Dr. Charley Shoemaker and with free use of the Navy Shields he fell in love with the sport and proceeded to fashion our lives around its enjoyment. “It all started 51 years ago right here,” I thought. Thanks Dad!
On our way to Harbour Court for a team dinner I decided to stop by Ida Lewis YC where I had a wonderful conversation with the crew of #160 whom we had “battled it out” for the top spot in the last two weeks, unfortunately not prevailing either time. As we discussed which side was advantaged and the merits of gybing soon after rounding the weather mark or not, I caught up with crew member Paul Foley who immediately “apologized” for tearing my dry suit with his mast, which had lashed my back as he flipped his Interclub Dinghy to windward while we were frostbiting on the Connecticut River in 25+ knots of wind over 30 years ago, “I think for a brief moment before we all wiped out, that was the fastest one of those things has ever gone,” he said laughing.
Just then the gun for colors boomed and as we stood in silence as the American Flag was slowly lowered and the cooling Southwest wind blew dew into our faces, I couldn’t help but think, “This has got to be one of the most Glorious places on earth.”
Joe Bardenheier – Apollo 11
August 10: “Listen to Your Crew!”
The fleet splits and 226 leads to the right. [...]
July 20: “In All Its Glory”
I walked down the dock to meet our crew last [...]
July 13: Tough Night for Team Tinky (258)
The July 13 race for Team Tinky brings to mind [...]