The Bitter Ender Race, co-hosted by Larchmont Yacht Club and the Storm Trysail on Saturday, October 19, was aptly named for most years. Mid-October conditions on Long Island Sound tend to be chilly and windy (the Bitter reference) and this is the last major Long Island Sound race of the season (the Ender). This year’s race retained its Ender status; but the conditions were far from Bitter.

In that this was only the second running of the Bitter Ender, not everyone is aware of its unique configuration. First, it’s a double-handed race. That’s not so unusual; however, whereas traditional races start at specific times, the Bitter Ender uses a “starting window.” With the course announced the evening before, sailors are able to combine wind speed and direction projections with current shifts to optimize exactly when to start during the 4-hour starting window.

This year’s starting window opened at noon with the start set right off the Larchmont Breakwater. Given the forecast for very light winds on Saturday, the race committee decided that a third, shorter course would be sailed. The longer course options are 82 and 60 nm, but reflecting the forecast, a third, 32 nm course was designated, sending boats around Eaton’s Neck and the Cows off Stamford before returning to Larchmont.

Eight boats competed in this year’s Bitter Ender ranging in length from Sarah and Josh Reisberg’s scratch boat ABILYN, a 40’ J/120 to Andrew Weiss’ 29’ J/88 ONE TOO MANY. The doldrum that existed at noon was forecast to fill with a sea breeze so, when the starting window opened at 1000, no competitors chose to start. The starting window was ultimately extended until 1600. It wasn’t until around 1500 that the southerly sea breeze appeared. Andy Lubimov’s Sun Fast 37 SANGUINE from Huguenot Yacht Club was first across the line at 15:27. By 1552, all eight boats had started their first leg, a 16-mile reach to Eaton’s Neck buoy.

Off the line, depending on the sails available, boats set spinnakers, code zeros, or large jibs. Although there was a following current and a fair wind direction, the boats split north and south of the rhumb line. Some of the larger boats including Peter McWhinnie’s JPK 1080 IN THEORY (with Rich du Moulin as crew) and Reisberg’s ABILYN hugged the Connecticut shore with spinnakers hoping for an overshoot of the sea breeze while eventual winner Andrew Weiss, Rear Commodore of Larchmont Yacht Club and Vice Commodore of Storm Trysail Club, sailed south of the rhumb with a closer reaching code zero anticipating the wind to fill in without the overshoot. Weiss’ prediction proved accurate and his ONE TOO MANY (sailing with Colin Fitzpatrick) got the wind first and rounded Eaton’s before the competition.

Once around Eaton’s, the wind had shifted to 210 o -222o making the leg to the Cows a close reach. With a longer waterline, ABILYN passed ONE TOO MANY on that leg and rounded Cows first. The 11-mile leg back to the finish was a port-favored beat. Near Flat Neck Point in Greenwich, Reisberg tacked south out into the Sound whereas Weiss continued to hug the shore to stay out of the foul current that was now ebbing. When these two lead boats converged again off Rye Weiss was again in the lead only to be overtaken again by the larger boat in the final 2-3 miles. Reisberg finished in the dark at 2223 with an elapsed time of 6:47 with Weiss four minutes behind.

Ultimately, it was Weiss who corrected out as the winner with Reisberg in fourth. Second place went to Leopold Brandl and Luis Vieira from Lion Sailing aboard SANGUINE, a J/100 with Todd Aven and Gerard Girstl on Aven’s J/99 THIN MAN from City Island Yacht Club and the STC in third.

Weiss summed-up the race, “This was an interesting double-hander on a boat with no autopilot. At times, we put the tiller extension on the gear shifter to steer while we handled the boat and sails. The key to our success was staying to the south on the leg to Eaton’s. Us getting the new breeze first pushed us ahead of the fleet…all of which were bigger boats. The second leg to Cows was straight forward, but our playing the shore back to Larchmont from Stamford protected our lead. There was some good competition out there in these flukey conditions. Also, as a Flag Officer of both of the host Clubs, I was very pleased to have won this new race’s second running. I’m also glad that we had really nice sailing conditions and that the ‘bitter’ aspect of the Bitter Ender didn’t materialize.”

This was Bertrand Amezcua’s first double-handed race. He sailed his Hanse 418 TOBOLA with fellow LYC member Nic Buc. Racing against more racing-focused boats with a lot of double-handed experience, Bertrand and Nic had a memorable, positive experience despite not finishing until 0104 on Sunday morning.

Thank you race committee for staying on station until all boats had finished. Amezcua’s takeaway from the race was, “At the end of the day, a cruising boat designed for a couple and their kids is the perfect double-hander. My boat was super fun to sail in the Bitter Ender. It would have been better if the wind hadn’t died two miles before we finished, but it was still a great day of sailing. I look forward to next year’s Bitter Ender…and the spring’s Edlu!“

Results available here. 

One such “restart” happened on Day 3 of this year’s New York Yacht Club Cruise last month. The course was from Greenport on the North Fork of Long Island to Sag Harbor, across Shelter Island from Greenport to the south. To make the course “interesting,” the Race Committee set a turning mark 5.5 nm inside Peconic Bay giving us a long beat followed by a long run. To make things even more interesting, there were forecasts of storms rolling across Long Island that afternoon.

I was sailing as one of four onboard Andrew & Linda Weiss’ CHRISTOPHER DRAGON, an Italia 11.98 that we had entered in the non-spinnaker division. Our objective was to have fun and, if we could win a race or two, that would be even better. In the first two races, we split wins with Patty Young’s Swan 42 ENTROPY. While DRAGON had a great rating, ENTROPY was well sailed by a full crew and her waterline gave her the legs to get out in the lead. She would be tough to beat on any given day.

OK, Mom, we won the start but, as was the case, the long, light, and flukey windward leg into Peconic Bay saw ENTROPY extend well on us. In fact, Patty told us later that they had us by over 19 minutes on the western most turning mark. The run home to the finish off Sag Harbor was dead down wind and, with both boats sporting non-overlapping jibs sailing wing-on-wing, we found the spinnaker divisions that started after us catching up. Then the wheels started to come off!

ENTROPY, NYYC Commodore Jay Cross’ Frers 74, FOGGY, and Former NYYC Commodore Paul Zabetakis’ Swan 42, IMPETUOUS, were easily over a mile ahead of us as we were halfway back out of Peconic Bay. We looked back at the slower boats behind us as the sky darkened and the forecasted front swept diagonally across the course, getting everyone behind us very wet with a short burst of wind. Being beyond the footprint of the front, we continued to sail in the sun and light breezes.

Then it happened…

IMPETUOUS had turned the last mark on her way to the finish off Sag Harbor and was out of sight; but it appeared ENTROPY and FOGGY were stopped right after the next mark and just short of the Sag Harbor/Shelter Island Ferry. There was a Race Committee RHIB in the vicinity…had they shortened the race? When in doubt, take out the binoculars and look! To our astonishment, while we were still sailing in 6-8 knots of wind, the two boats ahead had hit a wall of absolutely no wind and were just sitting there. In fact, Patty Young later commented that they saw 5-6 ferries cross the channel as they sat there watching us bring down the wind with us.

There we were, rounding the mark and side-by-side with ENTROPY having erased her nearly 20-minute lead. And the 72’ FOGGY was sitting there, too. As we sailed in, we were joined by DORADE, the Classic S&S yawl and another boat under spinnaker. The race had restarted!

As we worked our way up to the leaders, our eyes were mostly behind us. Where would the wind fill, die, or hold? And there were sandbars we had to avoid at all costs. On top of that, the wind was oscillating so we found ourselves gybing back and forth.

Quick tactics and keeping heads out of the boat was essential as we transitioned from puff to lull, from one point of sail to another. As the wind started to fill in and we were now on-the-wind, we were almost to the right hand beach when we had to tack out onto starboard. And…we were short handed. Importantly, there are times when you just do the right thing: as we tacked onto starboard to avoid the beach DORADE was to our left on port changing from a reaching spinnaker to a jib. There was a full fire drill in progress on DORADE’s bow. Rather than play port/starboard in this ever-changing situation, Andrew bore off and passed astern of this grand dame of sailing. “There’s no way we’re going to starboard tack DORADE!”

The wind filled finally. FOGGY and ENTROPY were off like rockets, but they only had about two miles left and that wouldn’t be enough run room to save their time. We came across the finish line with big smiles on our faces. We had anticipated the weather shifts. We had talked through each maneuver at least once before executing them. We kept our heads out of the boat – except for the navigator Larry Fox whose job it was to keep us off the beaches. We transitioned well from situation to situation. And while ENTROPY had sailed an exceptional race, the wind gods didn’t smile on them that day.

Oh, yeah, Mom, we not only won the start…but the race and ORC Non-Spinnaker, too.

Note: CHRISTOPHER DRAGON XII is a long-time UK Sailmakers Northeast customer and we sailed with our Titanium mainsail and X-Drive J1 for the majority of the Cruise.

Image Credits: Nick Woviotis/Skylla Filmworks and Linda Weiss

The 32-mile Edlu Race, saw 46 boats crossing the line ranging from flat-out ORC racers to PHRF club racers, J/88s sailing as one-designs, and double-handers. With a nearly east/west racetrack, the sailors started their first leg with the wind on the nose against a foul current. The easterly wind was predicted to be in the 8-knot range, then die only to fill in again from the south for an upwind return leg with the current having turned against the sailors by then. As it turned out, the wind at the start was a few knots above forecast as the boats split to the Connecticut and Long Island shores to beat out to the Eaton’s Neck turning mark.

Halfway down the outbound leg, the wind had clocked to 125 ^o and then 135 ^o degrees with boats lifting up on starboard to fetch the mark. The bigger boats rounded Eaton’s around 1300 with 11 knots of breeze from the 150^o direction allowing them to sail a downwind rhumb line course back to the finish. They knew there would be a shift as they all waited for the southerly to fill in bringing with it new wind conditions. Two thirds of the way back, the wind fell to 2 knots for a short period before the southerly filled in as forecast with 12+ knots of pressure. Chutes were doused and it was a close, port tack fetch back to the finish line off the Larchmont breakwater. Spectators in nearby high-rises were treated to a show as the fleet approached the finish like an armada.

In the end, it was two Larchmont Yacht Club boats taking the top prizes. Kurt and Anne Locher’s J/42 ATALANTA won the 32-boat PHRF fleet beating Macre Sykes’s (Riverside Yacht Club) J/125 Good News in second by over seven minutes on corrected time – Sykes also won the Black Watch Trophy for best elapsed time. For their performance, the Lochers received The Edlu Trophy. ATALANTA is a vintage J/42 that the Lochers upgraded significantly with the help of UK Sailmakers’ Butch Ulmer. In addition to a permanent prow, ATALANTA now sports a full suit of UK’s Titanium upwind sails and Matrix spinnakers.

In the keenly competitive, 11-boat ORC division, Andrew and Linda Weiss’s Italia 11.98 CHRISTOPHER DRAGON took top honors and The Nyala Trophy beating David Fass’s (Beach Point Yacht Club/NYYC) Swan 42 Zammermoos by less than a minute in a closely fought contest. As LYC’s Rear Commodore, Weiss took particular pride in this win noting, “I’ve raced in The Edlu for many years and even won it a few times; but it’s not the straight-forward out-and-back race it would appear to be. I spent a lot of time talking with Butch Ulmer about The Edlu and the complexities it can present. It was a challenge getting to Eaton’s in a good position given the shifty winds and having been well down the return leg before the southerly filled-in. One thing that made the difference for us was, as the wind was dying before the southerly filled-in, we saw breeze filling-in on the Long Island shore as everyone else was peeling off to Connecticut. We dropped our spinnaker and actually sailed away from the finish under jib to get into the new wind first. That one move made the race for us against bigger, faster boats that were ahead of us. Also, winning the Edlu as a Flag Officer of the host Club made this win special.”

Andrew continued, “This was the first time we used our new UK J0 (tweener) designed by UK’s Pat Considine. We were pleasantly surprised that we could use it at 65 degrees true wind. We really got back into the race again after setting it.”

This is the 13^th CHRISTOPHER DRAGON and the Weiss family has been a loyal UK Sailmaker customer for two generations. Onboard DRAGON for the Edlu were a Titanium main and J3, an X-Drive J1, and Matrix spinnakers. The accompanying photos show both boats at the start.

At the top of the 9-boat PHRF Double Handed division were Todd Aven and Gerard Girstl about the J/99 THIN MAN. Aven has used UK Sailmakers’ sails on all his boats and for the Edlu had up his X-Drive main and J1 plus Matrix spinnakers.

View the full race results here.

From grand-prix racing all the way down to Opti sailors, you need to know your way around a race course to win a season championship. That said, knowing the right people can help. The right rigger, the right person to help with a racing bottom, and, yes, the right sailmaker will make a difference. If you know “what to do” and have had the help of the right people, championships can be within reach.

Knowing the right sailmakers clearly was demonstrated at the recent annual awards night of New Jersey’s Keyport Yacht Club. Located on Raritan Bay, just below New York Harbor, the Keyport sailors have their mettle tested regularly by strong winds and tricky currents – not to mention the distraction of the imposing Manhattan skyline. Keyport is an active club with an average of 25 boats competing most Wednesday nights at the club and also on their Saturday races. Luckily for the Champions of all three KYC divisions, they knew the right sailmaker.

Dave Martin is part of the UK Sailmakers Northeast team and is located in the Raritan Bay area. With Dave’s solid input, all three KYC’s divisional season champs sailed with confidence. After all, having the right sails for the kind of sailing you do gives you a big leg-up. For two of these club racers, Dave recommended UK Sailmakers’ X-Drive® sails. X-Drive are the price-performing loadpath sails that provide club racers and performance cruisers exceptional shape-holding and durability approaching that of grand-prix sails…but at a fraction of the price. Terry Sculac’s Jenneau 45 sports a suit of UK Sailmakers’ performance Dacron sails.

“All three of these sailors are champions in their own right,” said Dave Martin. “I’m just glad to have played a part in their success by being the right sailmaker for them.”

In 2010, I started working with UK Sailmakers on a consulting basis doing advertising, writing newsletter articles, being part of the web team, and helping with general marketing issues. Although I was considered part of the UK extended family, my role as a marketing advisor didn’t call for me to travel to locations around the world for the annual UK International Loft Managers Meeting.

This year’s UKI Loft Managers Meeting, however, was held in White Plains, NY, only 15 minutes from my home. I quickly accepted UKI President John Bennett’s invitation to be part of this 3-day conclave of international sailmakers. At the meeting’s conclusion Friday afternoon, I stepped back to articulate my takeaways from the Managers Meeting: eye opening, invigorating, information sharing. Here’s the backstory:

Over the years, it became apparent to me that the organizational structure and operating philosophy of UK differ dramatically from the various advertising agencies and media corporations on my resume. Professionally, I grew up in top-down management structures where, by and large, you marched to the tune of the top person. Those presidents, creative directors, and CEOs were the talents that clients were buying, and you followed their leads.

UKI, on the other hand, is different. Originally Ulmer Sailmakers, Butch Ulmer traveled the globe to create the UK Sailmakers International network that has grown to 50 lofts and service centers around the world. The important and key difference between UKI and a traditional corporation is that each loft is owned by individual sailmakers who joined UKI to enjoy the benefits of and scale of an international entity. Yes, this confederation of like-minded, entrepreneurial sailors has a reporting chain of command to a single UKI president, however, the loft managers each have skin in the game, each has unique, local market insight, and each is committed to sharing ideas, knowledge, and innovation with their fellow UKI lofts. After a dozen years as a consultant, I was aware of this operating structure; but it wasn’t until I went to the 2023 Loft Managers Meeting that my perceptions of UKI were overwhelmingly confirmed.

UK Sailmakers Loft Managers attend a marketing presentation by Geoff Bishop and Heather Mahady.

I spent three days sitting among 25 sailmakers from Europe, South Africa, and Asia, as well as the U.S. It’s good to put a face to the names I’ve been working with for years, but the real enlightenment was seeing how these men and women work together. It reminded me of my fraternity days when everyone knew and liked each other…and we would work towards common goals. I was also reminded of my time at ESPN in the network’s pre-Disney early years when we were hundreds of sports enthusiasts working together to create a new product and new content based solely on the enthusiasm we shared.

As a starter, these loft managers are all exceptional sailors, each with a shared passion for the sport of sailing. They are all entrepreneurs running their own small businesses that roll-up to create a large, multinational enterprise. Each also recognizes that their personal success will be greater as part of the group vs. operating independently. Perhaps the most important component of this recipe for success is that they all trust and like each other (ergo my fraternity reference). Listening to three days of discussions sharing sail designs, sailmaking techniques and software, sail cloth innovations, and descriptions of how sailboat racing and cruising differs from region to region was nothing short of enlightening.

UK Sailmakers Chicago wins 2023 Loft of the Year for their outstanding contributions to the group. Pat Considine (left) accepts the award from UK Sailmakers International President, John Bennett (right).

With the additions of a family-style dinner at Carmine’s in NYC, a nighttime New York Harbor cruise with the NY and NJ skylines in full illumination, and even the bus ride into and out of the City, this meeting was informative, effective, enlightening, entertaining, and fun for all. On the final night, John hosted a dinner at Larchmont Yacht Club with Butch Ulmer in attendance. Watching everyone having their picture taken with Butch expressly to hang up in their loft was an indication of the impact Butch’s original vision for UKI has succeeded. Over my professional career I’ve attended scores of corporate conferences, but none were as cooperative, engaging, and mutually beneficial as this one.

Nighttime New York Harbor cruise with the NY and NJ skylines in full illumination.

In a word, thank you, John, for the invitation to participate, and thank you, UKI for allowing me to transition from the extended family to being part of the team. I’m now even more convinced that with UK Sailmakers, you really can Sail With Confidence.

The Long Island Sound’s traditional end-of-the-year distance race is Stamford Yacht Club’s Vineyard Race sailed over the Labor Day weekend. For the second consecutive year, light wind forecasts convinced the organizers to opt for the shorter Seaflower Reef course (143 nm staying within the Sound) vs. the longer full Vineyard course. Despite the light air forecast materializing, it didn’t deter 90 boats from participating.

When the dust settled Saturday night, two boats belonging to long-time UK Sailmakers customers had won their Vineyard Race division as well as major ocean racing trophies.

Racing within and winning Class 9 PHRF was Kurt Locher’s J/42 ATALANTA, while Andrew and Linda Weiss’ Italia 11.98 CHRISTOPHER DRAGON closed out its distance racing season winning Class 10 ORC. The significance of these two wins is that both boats won their respective ocean racing series.

For years, Stamford has sponsored the Northern Ocean Racing Trophy (NORT) for ORC yachts and the New England Lighthouse Series (NELS) for boats that race under PHRF. Both series require that you sail in the Storm Trysail Club Block Island Race and the Vineyard Race. In addition, you must sail an additional ocean race from a selected list. This being a non-Bermuda Race year, both boats opted to sail the Marblehead-to-Halifax race. The combined scores in the three races determine the overall winners. DRAGON won its Division in the Halifax Race and ATALANTA finished second in hers while DRAGON won the Block Island Race overall. That was all it took for DRAGON and ATALANTA to receive the NORT and NELS, respectively.

Sailing the Sunflower Reef course, it’s hard to get too far away from the Connecticut shoreline. DRAGON rounded the half-way mark at midnight Friday with a foul current. They hugged the northern shore to get out of the current, allowing DRAGON to get past the rest of the boats in their class.

Weiss’ Italia has a full suit of Titanium® upwind sails and Matrix® spinnakers. Interestingly, DRAGON carries a UK A3 rather than a Code 0 finding that the performance is comparable, while avoiding the hit to their rating.

Weiss further noted that this is his third NORT win (2011 and 2022) but more important to him was winning the Olin Stephens Trophy signifying the best combined performance in the 2022 Bermuda Race and the 2023 Halifax Race. “That was our objective going into the season. After winning our division in last year’s Bermuda Race finishing second overall, we sailed this year with the objective of earning the Olin Stephens Trophy. Thanks to a great crew, that objective was realized.

Locher’s ATALANTA is a vintage J/42 that he “turboed” by adding a spinnaker prod, upgrading from cruising to racing electronics, and updating the interior. Sailing now with asymmetrical spinnakers and code zeros, ATALANTA won her division in the local Thursday night Can One series, too. Kurt credits much of his success to advice he received from both UK Sailmakers’ Butch Ulmer on reconfiguring his vintage cruising boat. “Under Butch’s tutelage, we upgraded our sail inventory and converted a cruising boat into a racing boat,” said Locher. “We converted to racing and started competing about three years ago. We’ve built our program and have enjoyed our recent success.”

See here Vineyard Results and here Marblehead-to-Halifax Results for the results.

UK: You do a lot of shorthanded ocean racing, but how much singlehanded racing do you do?

NC: I used to do a lot of singlehanded races, but there aren’t that many around these days. This was my first one for a while.

UK: What was the boat you sailed?

NC: It was my Figaro 2. I had the boat trucked across the country from the west coast for this race. The Figaro 2 is a twin-rudder tiller boat with both symmetrical and asymmetrical spinnakers.

UK: How were the conditions during the race?

NC: It was as if there were three different races. We started in light winds coming out of Narragansett Bay only to have fog set in and the wind die. It was a drift fest for a while, but it was sort of fun as all the boats were still close together and there was a lot of VHF chatter.

The wind remained light up to the edge of the Stream but then the conditions became very different. I saw between 25 and 35 knots but it wasn’t gusty, so I didn’t constantly have to adjust the trim. It was a tight reach allowing me to sail near the rhumb line with a difficult sea state as the wind was against the current. The waves were steep and close together lifting the boat while at the same time breaking over the deck. The whole boat was wet! Close reaching with waves you could surf was fantastic. When you go from 9 to 14 knots that’s huge. I had a reefed main throughout this part of the race.

Initially, when the wind picked up approaching the Stream, I had up my reacher set from the sprit; but following the rhumb line didn’t get me to the surfing angle I wanted. I changed from my reacher to a jib and headed up. I had full water ballast helping with stability. I saw 14-16 knots of boat speed (surfing). which we don’t see regularly. Going through the Stream was fantastic. I even saw 18 knots of bsp. I thought this would be a very fast run, but then the conditions changed.

UK: What happened in the final portion of the race?

NC: Once I got through the Stream, everything turned to s–t. Within two hours, I went from 25 knots of breeze to 1. I was staying west of the rhumb line for the surfing conditions, and I was looking for a fast reach to bring me back to the rhumb line towards the finish. The router wanted me the other side of the rhumb because of positive current, but I didn’t think the pressure would merit that.

In those drifting conditions, I had up the windseeker because I couldn’t keep the spinnaker full. I spent 18 hours on sail trim to get the boat moving towards the finish covering only about 25 miles during that time. That was probably the toughest part of the race. The big winds were consistent making trimming easier, but the fickle light winds required constant adjustment. The wave train was pretty steady and, from a singlehanded perspective, that’s the best condition for racing because you can set up the boat and go to sleep. But that wasn’t the case towards the end.

UK: How much of the time do you steer vs. use the auto pilot?

NC: I spent very little time steering. I steered a bit at the beginning but after that I would steer only to set up sail trim and to get a feel for the boat. After the start, I shifted to the auto pilot quickly because you can’t steer as accurately and as responsively as the auto pilot over the long run. I did spend a lot of time optimizing the auto steering, but after that only needed to fine-tune the pilot. You really can’t drive and trim because every time I’d do both, the steering went bad. I really only steered in the transition phases when you had to make a lot of changes. Especially with the spinnaker up at the end because that was just fun.

UK: What spinnakers did you use?
NC: I used the A2 as the wind died toward the end before hoisting the windseeker and then the regular symmetrical spinnaker to make a beeline to the finish. It was a much better VMG with the traditional chute. In heavier air, the symmetrical is easier to sail because the boat is better balanced. The next fastest boat was using an asymmetrical, but he had to sail a further distance as I soaked allowing me to beat him.

UK: Who do you work with on your sail package?
NC: I work with Sylvain Barrielle in the UK Sailmakers San Francisco Loft. All my sails are from UK with the exception of a small spinnaker I rarely use and that came with the boat. The upwind sails are Titanium and the spinnakers Matrix sails. Sylvain advised us on the windseeker and that was definitely the money sail during the light stuff.

UK: On the 15^th, you and Blake will start the doublehanded return leg. What differences do you anticipate from your singlehanded leg?

NC: For the return, the conditions may be very different. Probably not much spinnaker work and the weather patterns are still uncertain (at the time of the interview). With two, however, we will keep optimizing trim because with two, you don’t have to worry about getting overtired because you can sleep. On the second, there will likely be more current issues. Coming down, there were three models for the Stream, and they didn’t agree, so I just played the wind. On the way back, we’ll probably be more against the current, so I’ll have to spend more time on the Stream’s location and direction.

Learn more about Nathalie Criou Racing at http://www.nathaliecriouracing.com.

Learn more about UK Sailmakers Titanium and Matrix sails at https://www.uksailmakers.com

Now the weather patterns are more precise and it looks like a tight windy reach at the start, followed by a reach in medium air and then some tricky light air sailing in changing systems closer to Newport. fyi

They say the second happiest day for boat owners is when they buy a boat. The happiest, conversely, is when they sell it. While this saying points to the work, time, and expense that go into owing and campaigning a boat, for most it is a bittersweet moment when, for the final time, you step off a boat you’ve loved and cared for over many years. Such a bittersweet moment occurred recently for Geoff Bishop, owner of the UK Sailmakers Fremantle loft in Australia.

Those of you who have followed UK Sailmakers through our newsletter, social media, instructional videos, and website, have had ample opportunity to see Geoff and his crew at work on CHECKMATE, a King 40. As Geoff will admit, his crew and fellow UK Sailmakers mates worked continuously to fine-tune CHECKMATE into the winning racing machine she is today. One of their first moves was to convert from symmetrical to asymmetrical spinnakers. With that change came evolving deck layout and running rigging configurations. Then there were the sails.

As you would imagine, Geoff has designed and built fast and durable sails for CHECKMATE. His upwind sails are UK’s Titanium^® loadpath sails and UK’s Matrix^® spinnakers complimented by a Code 0 and a spinnaker staysail that doubles as a wind seeker. Just because he’s in the sailmaking business, however, doesn’t mean he has a container of sails in his back yard from which he can select what to use that day. He’s an independent business owner who has to manage the cost of his sail inventory just like the rest of us. He did do a considerable amount of product and design development before actually building his latest racing sails.

In terms of that sail development and testing, Geoff shared, “When we purchased Checkmate, the first thing we did was to get a trial IRC certificate to see what would happen if we: 1) removed the spinnaker pole, 2) extend the bowsprit fully out (1.60m in front of the forestay), and 3) placed the largest workable asymmentrical onboard (adding an extra 28 sqm) over what the yacht currently had. The new rating came down by 0.001 of a point. Before our first race we added a new A2, A4, A1, A5, plus we had to replace the J3 and J4 as the current sails where not fit for racing. The first season we used what we had, got to learn the boat, and work out what areas needed improvement. The UK group had done some sail testing on inhauling sail designs with the J/109, and for the second sailing season we used this knowledge to build a new J1, J2 to allow us to inhaul further than we could before. A new mainsail was optimized for IRC and our rating further improved. During the second season we needed to improve the two sail reaching performance. This is the only area where we were being beaten by yachts of similar size. A new X-Drive jib top was added and a structured luff Code 0. Both of these sails achieved our goal of keeping us in front of our competition. The jib top worked when the winds were above 14 knots tight reaching. The Code 0 was our real weapon in light winds up to 12 knots allowing it to be deployed earlier than our rivals and could be carried at very tight wind angles. For the next three seasons, these sails allowed us to be competitive .

CHECKMATE’s race inventory is limited to a Titanium main, J1, J2, J3, J4 and jib top, spinnakers limited to an A1, A2, A4, A5 plus a Code 0 plus storm sails The proper sails but not the extensive inventory of back-up sails that some of his competition sails with.

That said, beyond being an exceptional sail designer and sailmaker, Geoff is a world class sailor in his own right. Were you to talk with him about sailing downwind in big offshore seas, for example, you’d surely pick up some subtle tricks on both driving and sail trim. And, when it comes to flawless boat handling by a crew intimate with how THIS SPECIFIC boat sails best, the CHECKMATE crew is at the top of that game, too.

That brings us to the new life for CHECKMATE. A sailor in Sydney has recently bought Bishop’s King 40 and plans to race her on Australia’s east coast. The new owner recognized that it will take time for his crew and him to get up-to-speed on racing CHECKMATE. He could have hired a coach to help, but instead, he’s having Geoff and some of his regular crew to come race with them in Sydney. Only after seeing the choreography of how Bishop’s crew has sailed the boat will they truly be able to meet their new-boat performance expectations.

Geoff’s final season with CHECKMATE was another successful one. One of Western Australia’s offshore champions is headed to her new home. Offshore WA’s media coverage noted, “This Saturday’s Roland Smith Race marks the final outing in WA for the Bishop Family’s CHECKMATE. A stalwart of Offshore Sailing for the past five years, CHECKMATE seldom missed a race and was usually on the podium. Second in the 2020/21 Coveted Siska Trophy and third in 2021/2022. She will be missed!”

Geoff, in that final, bittersweet moment added, “Thank you everyone who has sailed onboard and those that we raced against. It has been fun. Today we hand over the keys to the new team. Hope they have the same fun and success as we have had.”