2025 Vintage Nationals-10/4/25
Skippers, you may or may not have known, but I was away last weekend sailing in the Vintage Nationals Regatta on the upper end of Tom’s River in New Jersey. I know some of you like to hear about how things went, so here is my brief report on my outcomes.
Tom’s River is a brackish water river with very little tide in the area in which we were sailing. Last weekend the winds were very light and slightly shifty, with some surprising gusts. Another variable that often affected our sailing was the passing power boat traffic. I sailed in three classes: 50” Schooner’s, Vintage Highflyer Marblehead’s, and Vintage 36’s.
The Schooner was my greatest unknown in terms of performance. I built it from a pile of parts with no plans to go by. I have attempted to sail it in the Vintage National’s 2 previous times. The first time the sail plan proved unworkable, and I could not get the boat to turn through the wind and had to retire without sailing a lap. The second time I lost my sail winch while tacking around before the race began and I had to retire. This time I was hoping to just finish a lap. To make a long story short, I found the Schooner more difficult to sail than I imagined, but I was able to finish in 5th place out of 11 boats.
The next day, there were 30 Vintage Marblehead’s in three different Classes that started and sailed together. They werefaced with the occasional gust, but mostly very calm winds and rolling waves/boat wake. I had a lot of trouble keeping wind in my sails as my boat bobbed along, I felt that some of the heavier hulls seemed to handle the conditions a little better, but it might have just been my imagination. I did note that I was not alone in my struggles. In the end, I placed Second in the rather small Vintage Highflyer Division. I can’t tell how I did relative to the other Vintage Marblehead’s because they didn’t give all the scores. But I’ll take the Second Place.
On the last day of the Regatta the Vintage 36 Class boats were sailed with 16 competitors. The wind conditions were even lighter than the day before, but fortunately the smaller 36’s handled things a little better. In the morning, everyone struggled with the very light wind and boat wakes. Fortunately, towards noon, the breeze picked up a little and it was somewhat easier to keep the sails full of air.
In the afternoon, racing continued with light shifty breezes. There was a lot of jockeying for space around marks, and after boats rounded, they headed in all directions to find the wind and clear air. I was able to get clear in most instances and stay on the wind. In the end, I took First Place in Vintage 36’s. My Riptide 36 also won the Craftmanship award. Yay!
Cliff Martin