Monday, January 23, 2012

Key West 2012 Wrap Up



Key West Race Week finished strong this year, with one more sunny and windy sailing day on Friday. So that makes four terrific race days, one perfectly placed mid-week lay day, and 6 evenings of fun at Kelly's Caribbean. It doesn't get much better than that. Pictured here: the Teamwork crew looking good on Friday before racing to seal their first place position in PHRF 1. Other division winners included Ran (Mini Maxi), Quantum Racing (52 Class), Antilope (IRC 3), Barking Mad (Farr 40), Red (Farr 400), Carbonado (High Performance), Samba Pa Ti (Melges 32), New England Ropes (Melges 24), Groovederci (Farr 30), Le Tigre (J/80), and L'Outrage (PHRF 2). See the full results here and the photos here.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Great Start to 2012 Key West Race Week

We are not even half-way through 2012's Key West Race Week, but we have been served two days of incredible photography opportunities. Day 1 was a day for adrenaline junkies, with lumpy seas and 20 knots of breeze. In spite of diminishing breeze on Tuesday, all three circles were able to sail three races, and Key West translucent waters were at their best. With a good fleet of TP52s, new Farr 400s, the always competitive (and photogenic) Melges 24 and 32 fleets, we've been busy. And Circle 3 is full of competitive J80 and Farr 30 one design teams, plus high-performance PHRF entries like J111s and 1D35s. We look forward to the rest of the week! See the standings here, and our photo highlights here.

Islamorada: Tradewinds Catamaran Regatta


The Tradewinds Regatta is what sailing is all about- a bunch of beach cats launching from a palm-tree filled public park in the Florida Keys, and racing in a protected sound right off the beach. Even better, when we showed up on Saturday to shoot the 70-boat fleet before making our way down to Key West Race Week, the palm trees were shaking violently, reflecting the arrival of a cold front and it's accompanying 20 knot Northeast breeze. Another cool thing about this regatta: high-performance F16s and F18s were racing on one course, the juniors competing in F16s for the US Sailing Youth Multihull Championship; next door, Hobie Waves and Hobie 16s had close competition of their own, with many father-son teams and local sailors enjoying the waters. See our photos here, and the regatta report and results at CatSailor.com.

Monday, January 16, 2012

IFDS Worlds 2012

42 teams of disabled sailors from around the world competed for their world championship this past weekend on Charlotte Harbor in Southwest Florida. Many of these teams will go on to represent their respective countries in the paralympic games this summer in London.

Frenchman Damien Seguin won the singlehanded 2.4meter class without question. In the SKUD 18 class, Britain's Alexandra Rickham and Niki Burrell won by two points over the second-place finishers Americans Jennifer French and Jean-Paul Creignou. The Norwegian team won the 12-boat Sonar fleet.

See our photos here. For more results and reports, visit the event website: http://www.ifdsworlds2012.com/