Sail For Hope

The Sail For Hope is a race around Conanicut Island which benefitted the Hurricaine Katrina Relief Fund. This race began as the Sail For Pride which was conceived shortly after the tragic events of 9/11. Information about the race and it's causes can be found at the Sail Newport website.

A few of us have been sailing on Paul Zabetakis' Farr 40 Impetuous for some time now and we grabbed a few more for this event. Josh Hill, Oakley Jones, Anna Longstaff-Jones, Will Donaldson and myself joined Impetuous regulars Steve Ivers, Sean Cahill, Robin Merrill and Eric Zeller along with Lat Spinney to take class and fleet (87 boats) in the 18 mile race. Ross Weene sailed aboard the modified Kiwi 35 In Theory to tale second in fleet.

Josh and I have tried numerous times to take top honors in Newport's multiple "round the island" races each year and have come quite close a few times. It was nice to take the trophy this year but there is some unfinished 110 business. You are sure to see us out there again and I hope we will not be alone. Maybe a distance race for the 2006 Nationals?

2005 Fleet Racing

Fleet racing ended some time ago. Our PRO, Phil Cox, had taken some photos early in the season, though, and this is a good time of year to remember Friday night racing out of Newport.

505 Mainsheet

I would never hear the end of it from Oakley Jones if I did not mention the 505 class here. Yes, the 110 is a keel boat and the 505 is a dinghy but there are a lot of similarities since both classes have very relaxed rules regarding rigging. Oakley's latest 505'ism is the "headknocker" mainsheet system which you will see on a lot of skiffs and, recently, some hot 505's. The idea was posted via Layline and can be found here.

Unfortunately for Oakley this system is currently all about Ronstan/Fredericksen. Let's see how hard Juice pushes the engineers in Pewaukee to create hardware designed around the needs of the 110.

The US 505 website seems to be gathering a database of rigging photos as I write. This is great as there is some trickle-down to be had and some of their rigging info can be hard to find.

Mainsail Rule

Once again the subject of the mainsail rule is being debated. As of last week there is a lively debate over the current wording, if it should be changed and how changes would affect the fleet. Josh Hill has been working with a couple of lofts to see if a change should be considered. He has gotten a couple of responses and I hope to see them posted here in the near future.

I think the most important point here is that we are working with the sailmakers to make a refinement, not change the world. The biggest change occured when the class allowed the fourth, full-length batten. This issue is all about tweaking and is not an arms race. These are the changes which keep the class fresh, people interested and promotes growth.

More to come...

The Beginning

The internet being what it is, creating a small blog about the Newport, RI 110 fleet is pretty easy. There are a few of us who will be posting things as we think of them.

Hopefully we will keep this filled with recent content. I would like to see posts on potential mainsal rule changes, rigging ideas, tricky new ideas, etc.

New to the whole website / blogging thing, this may take a while to get right. Should be fun.