MASSA Fall SILVER Fleet Champs

Sailors from five different states and all five Mid-Atlantic leagues descended on Toms River Yacht Club for the 2018 MASSA Fall Fleet Silver Championship. The teams arrived under a light drizzle and southwest breeze, with the first eight races being sailed in a quite shifty breeze. Once the cloud cover broke, a beautiful westerly breeze kicked-in at 10 to 15 knots.

The competitors had to deal with an atypical Toms River current that was running with the breeze, causing boats to snag the windward mark more frequently than usual. With more ominous looking forecast for Sunday, sailing was continued until past 5:00 p.m., before the breeze began to shut off. Twelve A Division races were completed, while 10 B Division races were finished.

Two completed protests resulted in two DSQs, while several protests are pending and will be heard in the morning. Sunday's report time is set for 8:30 a.m.

The 18 teams reported to TRYC at 8:30 a.m. and were greeted with a sailable 15 knots of breeze. After a short competitors' meeting, B Division launched to complete races 11 and 12, which A Division finished on Saturday afternoon. However by the time the first race was started at 9:30 a.m., the breeze had quickly built to a steady 18 knots with gusts approaching 28. Although a handful of boats were managing the breezy course, race 11B was abandoned in-progress after several boats capsized. Racing was called for the day, causing races 11A and 12A to be dropped.

Congratulations to the Key School for winning the very tightly contested regatta, as the top-five were separated by nine points. The Stony Brook School was six points behind in second place, while Summit High School was seven points back in third place. Fourth place Broadneck High School was the A Division winner and fifth place Christian Brothers Academy won the B Division.

One protest running over from Saturday afternoon resulted in a DSQ, while one request for redress was granted and the team was reinstated to their finishing position.

MASSA and the NJISA have plenty of people to thank for helping run this district event: Regatta Chair: Dr. Randall Nunn; PRO: Dave Magno; Race Committee: John & Helga Paggi; Patrol: Mitchell Nunn & Nick Rinaldi; US Sailing Judges: Harry Foote & Priscilla Gettis; Scoring: Jason Lutz; OCC Rep: Brian Hull. A warm thank you to Mr. Kevin Kempton for the use of his boat "Gloria" so the RC had a nice enclosure to stay out of the wind and to Mr. Terry Kempton for showing up to assist recovering the boats after the races were abandoned Sunday morning.

Of course, MASSA would like to thank Toms River Yacht Club for the use of their terrific facility, as well as Ocean County College for providing the 18-boat fleet.

The following chart shows the relative rank of the teams as of the race indicated. Note that the races are ordered by number, then division, which may not represent the order in which the races were actually sailed.

The first place team as of a given race will always be at the top of the chart. The spacing from one team to the next shows relative gains/losses made from one race to the next. You may hover over the data points to display the total score as of that race.