Coronavirus Has a Silver Lining
This story by Holley Toppa (156) first appeared in Scuttlebutt Sailing News and the North Sails website.
It’s strange to think that the summer sailing of 2020 in Newport was kicked off with Wednesday night Shields racing. After the start on the first upwind leg, my dad, Mike Toppa is at the helm. Wednesday night Shields sailing happens every summer, but this first race felt like coming out of hibernation.
I remember saying out loud, “Wow, it’s the first race of the summer.” My dad [Mike Toppa], usually on the water as a North Sails Superyacht Expert, turned and looked at me with his big smile and replied, “Isn’t it cool!”
John Dory (217) and Bomba Charger (156) lead the first unofficial race held in June; crews were limited to three.
It’s not quite the summer we imagined. With COVID-19 rewriting everyone’s schedules along with new rules and regulations, it was hard to imagine how sailing was going to operate.
Normally, my dad would be going on another consecutive summer of commuting around the country and the world for anything superyacht related, but as we know, many of the happenings around the world have either been canceled or pushed back to a later date.
Amid all the unknowns, my dad still made sure to dedicate time to rigging and tuning the Shields, Bomba Charger, getting her race-ready for the summer despite not knowing if there would even be a race.
Luckily he, along with the other stir-crazy sailors stuck in quarantine, were able to work out a way for Wednesday night sailing to commence under the new guidelines; requiring masks on board, limiting the crew to three, and calling for all to wear PFD’s as an added cherry on top.
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You could have told my dad that he would have to single-hand the Shields in a hazmat suit and a helmet and he still would have been out there for the first race.
That first Wednesday night was a bit surreal. It was unusual to not only see the harbor so empty after Memorial Day but to have the bay completely to ourselves, not including the unusually high number of spectators for a small Shields race complete of just nine boats.
The Shields fleet is one of the few fleets on the water in Newport so far and as a result, has definitely sparked some extra competition between the teams. Everyone was eager to not only break up the ‘stay-at-home’ monotony but to once again get back out on the water and show that they’ve still got it.
My dad made up his three-man team with myself and my boyfriend, Jeremy Wilmot. It is quite a special opportunity to be able to have the time of two working sailors for Wednesday night racing and watch them shake off the rust and get back to doing what they love.
I had my place in the boat, doing mostly what they told me to do, but watching and listening to them talk about the nuances of the racecourse was such a great learning experience for me.
This time to spend sailing with my dad has been such an unexpected gift despite this pandemic. I would have been in Charleston working, not sure when I would be able to come up and visit. Now, I’m able to join my dad and share doing what he loves.
Shields Fleet 9 Safe Boat Launching Initiative
After 2 boats had keel bolts fail when launching recently, resulting in the boats dropping and being total write offs, Fleet 9 and Sail Newport met to review the launch process and find a safe, long-term solution. Besides 2 boats being total losses, luckily no one has been injured. But Sail Newport’s ability to allow the hoists to be safely used by Fleet 9, within the limits of their liability insurance, has become an issue.
Download PDF with illustrations.
Some boats launch using a lifting bar connected to 2 or more keel bolts. Many launch with a Spectra bridle attached to 2 eyes on the keelbolts. Some keelbolts are bronze, some are steel. Regardless, the bridle coming off the eyebolts torques the bolts at an angle and can bend them as shown in the picture below. The 2 boats that fell launched with a bridle. After inspection, I’ve noticed 156’s bolts are bent. Continuing to pick these 4,600-pound boats up relying on decades-old bolts is a ticking time bomb.
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To bypass hoisting via keel bolts, we asked Matt Smith, NA, to design a Shields-specific frame so the boat is suspended with straps around the boat’s hull instead of picking it up from the bolts on the inside. The frame is aluminum and collapsible.
The frame was designed by Matt Smith, N.A. and is under construction by Tom Rich / Safe Harbor NEB. It will be owned by Sail Newport and available for fleet use by April 20.
Survey Results and Making the Plan for the 2020 Season
You spoke, we listened…
As most of you know, Shields Fleet 9 has seen a significant participation decline over the past decade or so and your fleet officers set out to find out why… and how we can revitalize enthusiasm in this great fleet. To do this, we set out to listen to both past and present owners via a survey sent out to investigate all sorts of options to get your feedback. And feedback is what we got.
For those that participated, thank you very much. We are excited to reveal the results of that survey and let you in on all the changes we’re planning for next season and beyond. In total, we received over 35 completed surveys, along with pages of comments and suggestions, and we read each and every one!
The Results….
First, you told us what you love about Wednesday Nights and what not to change, and that includes keeping it spinnaker racing, with all boats on one start, and keeping the three seasons’ of Weds Night Scoring exclusive of weekends.
But, we also heard that there are considerable frustrations over the early season start times, a degradation of sportsmanship on the water, and an over-emphasis on the top few winning boats over the engagement of more casual racers. To address these concerns, we have begun several initiatives for this coming season, including:
- Pushing start times back 30 mins for the Spring and Summer Season
- Hosting various clinics to help alleviate rules infractions
- Encouraging videos of starts and mark roundings posted on our website by those doing RC Duty
- Allowing the participation in both of our series among boats with roller furlers
- Introducing a special sub-series of awards for our more casual racers
- Investigating an affordable (optional) race tracking program to go back and re-watch your races to celebrate your wins and learn from your mistakes.
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For weekends, we’ve seen the largest drop off, so much of our ideas were focused on how to re-invigorate this series.
Here, you told us that weekends were different for everyone, so a mix of ideas was most important. To that end, we decided to offer a little of everything in the hopes you will join us.
- For some, the mid-day start time cuts into other activities, so for a few weekends, (not all) we’ll start a few hours later. We’ve also brought back the Sunday racing option.
- We also heard that doing the same thing every weekend gets boring, so next season we are offering a mix of traditional and non-traditional courses and destinations, including a first ever race-n-raft event to Mackerel Cove and back.
- But, we heard that early starting times (before noon) or designating all events as spinnaker were non-starters for most of you.
- Also, look forward to additional award categories and a few surprises to spice up our Aloha series for 2020.
The Notices of Race are Ready
Thanks to quick work by our amazing Ida Lewis YC Race Committee, the Wednesday Night Notice of Race and the Aloha Series Notice of Race are complete and available on our website with the full schedule of races. Mark your calendars and tell your crew to do the same!
http://shieldsfleet9.com/
In the meantime, our next fleet event is the Shields Tuning and Trim seminar on March 11th, hosted by North Sails in Portsmouth which already has more than 60 sailors signed up. If you haven’t signed up yet, click here. They will also be hosting a Crew-Finder event, 5:30-7:00pm, March 31st. We will be talking up the fleet and taking names of those interested; if you can join us at the Shields Fleet 9 table, you’ll get first pick of any new crew who stroll by! (More on that soon.)
Speaking of crew, we’re attempting to engage with high-school sailors this season and are looking for an owner who might be willing to loan their boat for some of the races to a supervised crew and/or anyone who needs crew and would like to be lined up with one or more young sailors on a regular basis. Let us know if you’re interested.
Last but not least, we expect to have our Spring Registration Party in mid-April, likely with another dose of rules education. We’ll get the date to you soon!
Thinking spring,
The Fleet Officers
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