2024 Race Recap Assignments to be drawn via lottery at the 2024 Spring Skippers Meeting
Race Recap Duty
Back for the 2024 Season, HBR has initiated Race Recap Duty for those Wednesday Night Racing Member Boats who were not selected to serve Race Committee Duty at our Spring Meeting RC Draft.
Within 24-hours of the race finish for your assigned night, you are required to provide a brief written recap of the race from your boats perspective. This recap can be written by any member of your crew, or all the crew can write it together, but it needs to come from someone who was aboard your boat during the race.
Recaps can be as long, or short, as you’d like. Each Recap will be posted to the HBR Website as they are received, so keep in mind that this will be public! A photo or two taken during the race may be included as well.
The goal is to create a narrative of the season for all to enjoy.
At the end of the season, the HBR Board will vote to award the best Race Recap Prize.
Email your recap to: [email protected] and it will be posted as it is received.
As we don’t have enough boats to fill out the whole season, adjustments to the assignments can be requested by emailing [email protected] within 48 hours of your assigned race day.
2023 Best Recap Winner:
Wednesday June 28, 2023
The first race of the Summer series went off despite calls for thunder and lightning in the forecast. It felt every 30 minutes refreshing the prediction either showed clear skies or thunderstorms. Thankfully the weather turned and we were able to get in what was one of our longer races yet this season
I’m the owner of LittleWing, a sport boat in the B fleet. This Wednesday we had four souls on board. In addition to myself we had Scott Millar, Robbie Briggs, and Kevin Horrigan. We prepared for a dying breeze as was predicted so of course this means the breeze rarely went below 13 and was building during the evening. After 5 seasons of skippering you’d think I’d learn to do the opposite of the wind prediction but that’s a lesson to be learned for another night. Our course in the B Fleet took us deep into the Fore River Channel to mark “29” also known as the “mark that is so far away we wait for other boats to round so we know which one it is” mark. Up to “19” outside Bumpkin Island. Back to the start at “HB” then to “23” on the opposite side of Sheep Island and back downwind to finish. A Fleet had the same course whereas C Fleet had a shortened version with “22”, “19”, “HB”, “24”, and finish back at “HB”.
The current was coming in all night so this presented a choice for the racers after the start: do you fight the current for a bit going high into West Gut or do you keep it tight to Sheep Island and hit a rock. I opted for the latter and found that rock. Not everyone knows this but I’ve been conducting a five year survey of the Bay with my keel and nearly have every single rock located. Thankfully I have a swing keel and the damage is likely minimal. In any event we only lost half a knot for about 3 seconds. The plan didn’t work out though as those that went into the gut definitely found more wind and ended up pulling away. Wharf Rat, Satic, and JEF were leading the B fleet to the weather mark. By the time I had rounded A fleet had caught up and all hope was lost.
Winner’s Circle
Insights from the first place finishers in each fleet
A Fleet
Tom Curtis - Magpie
We went right on the first beat and got lifted the whole way - breeze & West Gut current. We were just high enough to keep going past Pig Rock and didn’t tack until the low water stick at Quincy. That was huge for us. Also the ability to hold the kite on the reach from “19” to “HB”.
B Fleet
Lew Marten - Impromptu
We would favor the right hand side of the course on both upwind legs. And we paid particular attention to any of the shoals on the course.
C Fleet
Eddie Quirk - Falcon
After a port tack start we went over to the channel to ride the current all the way to Pig Rock then took the channel down to “22”. Gusty beat us to “22” but we overtook Gust on the downwind leg to “19” by a slim margin. After we rounded “19” it was a very competitive race with Gusty but we pulled it off in the end.