Sailing
The Holmes Hole Sailing Association, a group of skippers that has sponsored friendly competitions since 1970, has announced its 2012 summer schedule of handicap sailboat racing from Vineyard Haven Harbor.
The association will sponsor a series of 27 races, in a variety of formats, beginning with a tune-up race in Vineyard or Nantucket Sound on June 17 and concluding with the annual George Moffett Memorial Race on September 8.
Last Wednesday night was a holiday special for fans of the novel Moby-Dick, or any other maritime tale. Nathaniel Philbrick, the Nantucket author of a number of best-selling maritime history books, including In the Heart of the Sea, talked to an audience at the Black Dog Tavern about his most recent work, a 132-page book called Why Read Moby-Dick?, published by Penguin Group.
The night couldn’t have been more appropriate for anyone who has either experienced the epic novel as a reader or watched it on the movie screen.
Like so many Vineyarders do, the high school sailing team gathered Monday afternoon at the Steamship Authority docks to wait for a boat.
Or, more specifically, their six boats, which rolled off the Island Home on the back of a trailer to much applause and cheering.
Thanks to gifts from Sail MV benefactors — the program provides equipment and a home base for the team — the team was able to purchase brand new 420s for the fleet. This is the first new fleet in the program’s history; previous boats were always purchased used.
In the depths of winter, more than 400 sailors gathered last weekend to talk about sailing — much of it centered on the waters of Martha’s Vineyard — at the 50th anniversary annual meeting of the Catboat Association in Groton, Conn. Sailors attended from as far south as Florida and from as far north as Maine.
When Nat and Pam Benjamin and their two-year-old daughter Jessica sailed into Vineyard Haven Harbor in 1972, Nat wondered aloud to his family, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a boatyard to fix up some of the wrecks around here and maybe build some new boats?”
The sixth annual Vineyard Cup regatta was the best yet. Wind, weather, participation and competitive spirit reached new levels in what has become the Island’s premiere three-day sailing competition. A record 101 sailboats of varying size and construction competed in Vineyard waters, from Menemsha Pond to Cow Bay.