Sixth race of season for sailing club

Saturday was an unexpectedly marvel-ous day for the Amelia Island Sailing Club’s sixth sailboat race of the 2023 season. With temperatures on land approaching 
or exceeding 100 degrees for more than a week, with little or no wind, the sailors were expecting a real drifter and baking in the hot sun.

Pleasant surprise — the westerly winds at the start of the race were in 12-17 mph range with gusts up to 24 mph, and there was a slight cloud cover, which made for exciting, cool racing with temperatures in the high 80s.

Six boats came out for the 10:15 a.m. start east of Fort Clinch on the St. Marys River. A swift incoming tide made timing the start a navigational challenge.

The well-designed race course of 9.3 nautical miles began with a beat to wind-ward from the start line to the mouth of the Amelia River, and then there were three dif-ferent shaped triangles around Cumberland Sound. Two long reaching legs down the Sound and then down the Amelia River led to the finish line south of Egans Creek.

Five of the six boats finished within 3 minutes 24 seconds of each other on PHRF handicap-adjusted time after nearly two hours of racing.

Norm Wentworth on Morning Glory, with crew of Keith MacDonald and Geoff McKnight, secured his first AISC victory with a slim 21-second lead over Justin Pelham-Webb’s Valkyrie.

John Drake skippered On Eagle’s Wings to third place, a little over two minutes back on corrected time, but only after battling to an identical elapsed time photo finish along-side Morning Glory.

Bill Kavanaugh and team on Tiger Tale finished in fourth place. Gary Sanders brought Salty Sally into fifth place, followed by Tom MacArthur on Rebecca’s Reach.

Tremendous racing and good fun on such an enjoyable day on the waters off Amelia Island.

Complete results and more race photos are available on the AISC website. Visit www.ameliaislandsailingclub.wildapricot.org.

The next AISC race will be on Saturday, Aug. 19. All are welcome to race with sail-ing club, requiring just a club membership at $100 per year. Visit the club’s website to learn more about membership.

AISC is a social club with a boating inter-est, and anyone with a boating interest is invited to join. Members have sailboats, power boats, pontoon boats, and many have no boats. The club holds monthly dinner meetings, monthly races and other social events throughout the year.