This 2026 racing season started last weekend with the 47th annual Spring Regatta at American Yacht Club. Flagship was onboard as an event sponsor, and I was fortunate to be crewing aboard our Grand Soleil 44 ANTIDOTE in the ORC Coastal division. What a weekend!
Friday featured a competitive division for us, including the Italia 11.98 Christopher Dragon XII and the new J/40 J-Hawk among others, racing in under 10 kts. We had a poor start and ended up well behind the second row, while the boats that hit the line with speed extended. The SW breeze was very patchy coming over Long Island, but we were able to keep the boat moving in the lulls.
We watched most of the fleet tack left, but we were seeing just a hint of breeze if we stayed right. That move allowed us to claw back everything we had lost on the start. The GS44 showed amazing speed downwind on the 2nd leg, as the breeze continued to fade. We legged out on our division and even managed to sail into the PHRF division of larger/faster boats that had started 5 minutes ahead of us! We ended up winning the division by over 4 minutes on corrected time over a 6.4 nm course.
We tucked the boat in at the AYC “Sponsor Dock” and welcomed our fellow competitors aboard Friday evening and Saturday morning, two gorgeous sunny days. Everyone was impressed that such a competitive boat had such a beautifully finished interior!
Unfortunately the breeze did not fill in for racing on the south course Saturday, and all we achieved was some much needed practice with the Code Zero. Kudos to the race committee for getting a race on the east course.
Sunday brought a total “bookend” to the conditions: a very puffy NW breeze in the teens, building to 25+ kts in the afternoon. Game on! This was the most breeze we have seen on ANTIDOTE, so we took some sag out of the headstay, jacked up the rig and added a plate, and put up the heavy J3.
This time we were well set-up at the start, finding the committee boat at speed. Unfortunately, so did one of our competitors, reaching down and forcing us to bear away and fly the protest flag. As the upwind leg continued, we found the boat very balanced and easily driven, although we couldn’t reel-in our competition (who later took a scoring penalty as a result to the incident at the start). We ended up scoring 2nd and correcting about a minute ahead of the 3rd place J/121 Touch of Grey.
The second race on Sunday got spicy as gusts were now in the high 20 kt range. We stayed fairly close to a well-sailed Xp44 Phantom and the J/121 on the short upwind, although I think we will find more boat speed in heavy breeze as we continue to learn the boat.
The second leg was a moderate reach that would have been perfect for a jib top, but without that sail in the inventory we relied on our J3 sheeted to an outboard lead. With 30 kts puffs, we knew the next leg would be interesting.
We had a mostly clean set on the A4 and charged downwind at 10-12 kts, jibing onto the layline. As we got set-up to douse, the J/121 was having issues ahead of us at the mark. We soon realized they had a crew overboard situation, and we prepared to render assistance while the Xp44 did the same. With water temps in the low 50’s, time was of the essence. So, this was a bad time for us to foul the spinnaker sheet around the prop – and a good reminder to always check for lines in the water before starting the engine.
Kudos to the crew of Touch of Grey, who were able to recover their own COB in very trying circumstances. They displayed excellent seamanship and fortunately their crewmember was wearing a PFD. Antidote was granted re-dress and ended up 3rd for the weekend after a 2-4 vs 4-2 tie for second. Congrats to Phantom and Surface Tension, and thanks to AYC for a great event!
