The Most Important Race

By Holley Toppa (156)

There’s no doubt that Wednesday night is an anticipated night of Shields races for all who attend, but the one race that goes unspoken is the race back into the harbor.

With the course now being set north of the bridge and the loose rule set by the race committee to have the boats in the harbor by sunset, there are lots of additional factors to consider for the journey back home. The sail in, typically with a beer in hand, is significantly longer and usually upwind, and requires navigating the quickest way around Rose Island.

The race to the harbor, sailing under Pell Bridge in Newport. Liza Toppa photo

Unlike Ida Lewis YC running until 9:00pm, launch service at New York YC have only been running until sundown, making it key for some teams to get to the mooring in time to get picked up before the line of other boats waiting to get in, especially as Covid regulations limit the amount of people allowed in the launches. And for teams like our 156 ​Bomba Charger​ there is always an 8:00 dinner reservation as the cherry on top.

The evening of the 22nd was a tough sail home. Six knots and fog combined with an upwind sail against the current made it a slow journey, resulting in a few teams returning to their moorings as late as 9:00. Because of this, sailing north of the bridge has made some of the teams more inclined to invite friends out to watch, in hopes to catch a tow in on a lighter evening, which nicely enough adds to the Wednesday night racing spectator fleet.

Liza Toppa photo

Luckily, last Wednesday was a bit breezier and the tide was going out fast, which made it a quicker sail compared to the foggy and light Wednesday before. Hopefully we will continue to see favorable conditions to not only allow for some great racing like we saw last week, but also a swift and seamless sail back home for the night!