A four-man team from the Cayman Islands has returned from competing in a prestigious yachting event in New York organised by legendary America’s Cup contender Dennis Conner.
Representing the Cayman Islands Sailing Club (CISC), the team of Peter Cunningham (helm), Sam Dawson (bow), Matthew Diaz (downwind trim and tactics) and Michael Farrington (upwind trim and tactics) finished a credible fourth place in a strong international field.
The team was racing a 24-foot ‘J24’ sailboat in the Second Dennis Conner International Yacht Club Challenge in New York Harbour.
The four-day regatta, hosted by the Manhattan Yacht Club, featured a total of 15 teams from eight countries – Australia, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and the US.
The Manhattan Yacht Club clubhouse is on a barge moored near Ellis Island. The racing took place under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty and with spectacular views of lower Manhattan, the New Jersey shore and Brooklyn down to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
All the courses were simple ‘sausage’ courses with one, two or three circuits.
Light airs combined with strong currents and a lot of chop from other vessels in the harbour – including ferries, barges, cruise ships, tourist vessels and speedboats – made conditions challenging throughout the regatta.
The first day’s racing was in very light airs and the Cayman team got off to a difficult start, finishing eleventh in the first race after landing in a ‘hole’ between the prevailing east-northeast wind and a sea breeze from the south.
Mr Conner hosted a dinner that evening and gave the competitors an update on the America’s Cup and also came to see the teams off on the second day.
Cayman enjoyed this day of the regatta better than the first. Even though the winds were still light, the CISC crew finished in second place. Mr Cunningham, the helmsman, paid tribute to his upwind trims man. ‘We finished second thanks to a great call by Mike Farrington at the last leeward mark that enabled us to take out an Italian team from Lake Guarda,’ he said.
The regatta was then hit by several aborted starts with virtually no wind. Finally, the sea breeze filled in and everyone could enjoy a good race where the CISC team twice worked its way into a challenging position only to lose it through helming errors. A tenth position left the crew in the middle of the field, eighth place overall, after two days.
The third day of the regatta continued with the sea breeze and Cayman seemed to revel in the conditions, gradually improving all the time and finishing the three races completed on that day in sixth, fifth and fourth respectively. This left the Cayman team in sixth place overall with one day to go.
That evening, the Cayman crew was given the rare privilege of taking out one of Mr Conner’s Formula 1 boats, ‘Stars and Stripes’. ‘It was a wonderful experience to cruise New York harbour on this powerful boat, with the evening sun going down and the skyline of Manhattan lighting up,’ said Mr Cunningham.
The last day saw two good races. The Cayman crew knew who they had to beat to work its way up. It seemed the longer the races went on, the better they fared. Thanks to success on the water for the CISC boat and a poor showing from their rivals on day four, the team was able to turn a sixth and then a third place into a fourth position overall.
The winning boat was a local vessel from the Raritan Yacht Club, ahead of a team from the Royal Cork Yacht Club from Ireland and a team from the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in third, who narrowly edged out the Cayman team.
Looking back on the team’s performance overall, Mr Cunningham said it had been a fine effort in unfamiliar conditions and surroundings.
‘Generally, we were fast upwind and downwind thanks to excellent trimming and regularly worked our way through the fleet,’ he said.
‘Starts, which we had practised on Judy Bullmore’s J24 here in Cayman, were solid. Tactics were excellent but getting in the right place given current and wind combinations was challenging.
‘The Raritan boast got off to a fast start – four ‘bullets’ in the first five races – but started to come back as the regatta went on, the races became longer and the fleet got more used to the conditions.
‘We made a number of friends from around the world, particularly from our host club and the teams from Australia (Fremantle), France and Ireland. We had a number of crews ask about regattas in the Cayman Islands and on our interest in their regattas. Overall, it was a great experience,’ he said.
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