Mid-Atlantic Musings: Photos from the 2023 BYC Classic Moth Boat Regatta

This year was the 30th Classic Moth Boat Regatta at Brigantine YC. This benchmark should have ocurred in 2021 but we had to cancel that year due to COVID-19 and last year we were blown out by big 30+ knot winds. Last year we were reduced to sitting around and eating a commemorative cake, circle-M icing and all. This year we still had cake but in honor of my Mother-in-Law's 85th BD. What follows are pix taken by diarist daughter from the RC boat.

Once again, the wind was out of the NW which is an awkward direction for launching at BYC. Joe Bousquet rolled his Mistral to the float rather than using the launch ramp.

Others followed suit. Nr 1929 is an older Connecticut design.

Last year we had 30+ knots. This year we still had a stiff breeze--15+ with gusts higher. But at least it was sail-able.

Eventual overall winner, Mike Parsons in his Mistral design.

John Way who sailed this boat back in the 1950s assists his son after splashing this newly restored boat for the first time since taking delivery from Bill Boyle.

The Judy B with a bone in her teeth.

Diarist son Erik in our glass Europe design. Erik did quite well. He not only came in first in the Gen I division, but also beat all the faster Gen II boats during one of the races.

John Z in his Mistral Y2K2 Bug.

Greg Duncan's Europe.

Your old diarist sailing the wood Europe. This was not a good outing for me. I struggled all day.

Joe B. leading the younger John Way.

One of the starts. The wind had enough fetch to make things a bit lumpy.

John Z

Mike's sail demonstrating the classic not enough luff curve for the amount of mast bend. He won the regatta in spite of that.

There was both more pressure and less current out by the marsh island than in the main channel. The danger was that with the tide going out one needed to be mindful of running aground.