Lunenburg Yacht Club Welcome Back Regatta a smashing success

Lunenburg Yacht Club Welcome Back Regatta © Lunenburg Yacht Club

The Lunenburg Yacht Club held the first Welcome Back Regatta on August 21st to 23rd. The regatta had great attendance, all things considered, with just over 200 competitors and 36 boats across five classes. Due to Covid restrictions, the club's property had a maximum of 250 people on-site, so sailors had to be limited for health safety reasons.

Jennifer Hall was the Regatta Chair and Colin Mann (J/92 owner of Poohsticks) was the Regatta PRO.

Winds on day one were 15-25 knots resulting in some boats retiring early. Saturday the racers were treated to a sail past by the 140' Bluenose II. Sunday saw more manageable 10-15 knot breezes, making for exciting, close sailing. Several classes sailed up to eight races over three days.

PHRF A Class was won by Larry Creaser on the J/100 Young Blood, racing extremely well against a fleet of hot 30-footers.

PHRF B Class saw yacht broker Chris Power in the J/29 Jaeger finish second in the 9-boat fleet, just ahead Bernd Hackstein's J/27 Buzz and Don Williams J/29 Paradigm Shift.

The six-boat J/105 class was won in a complete "whitewash" of the fleet by Rory Macdonald's McMAC; winning seven of eight races and throwing out a 3rd and a 1st to win with all bullets. Surviving that somewhat painful "schooling" was John Sapp's V-Tack and Richard Gerstenberger's Axis finishing 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

This regatta was the first of its kind in Nova Scotia after Covid restrictions required the annual Chester Race Week to be postponed for the season.

Click here for more Welcome Back Regatta information and results.