Sports
Susan Wilson is a runner. She runs everywhere she goes — Egypt, France, Viet Nam, England, her home in Princeton, N.J. and Chilmark. They’re all good places to accelerate her body past a walk. In fact, at 78, she was the fastest female in her age category in Chilmark Road Race last Saturday. She has won that honor 11 times, in her 60s and her 70s.
Sunday’s stiff southwest wind more than made up for Saturday’s light air to make the 14th annual Edgartown Yacht Club 12-metre regatta a weekend success. Ten of the fastest sailboats in the region, contenders in past America’s Cup racing, came together on Nantucket Sound to share a moment at the start and race to the finish. Saturday had time for just one race; Sunday had three.
Jeff Randall, a 12-metre enthusiast and event chairman, said the weekend sailing will go down in the yacht club books as one of the best sailing weekends they’ve had.
The Holmes Hole Sailing Association continued its summer series of handicap sailboat racing from Vineyard Haven Harbor on Sunday, August 3, with the Chappy Rendezvous Race.
It was a cloudy morning with a west wind of five to 10 knots and a forecasted threat of rain. Twelve boats posted for the start at red nun 6 outside of the Vineyard Haven breakwater.
With the sounding of the horn, some 1,600 runners in the 31st Chilmark Road Race took off. The herd shot toward the press truck like raptors in a Steven Spielberg film and the red pickup sped up to avoid being overtaken. John Ciccarelli was at the front, his face just feet from the photographers’ lenses. Behind him two boys in pink shirts attempted a 100-meter dash in the beginning of the 3.1-mile race and soon dropped off to the side.
Mark Alan Lovewell will present Fish Stories: Tales and Songs of Vineyard Fishermen, on Tuesday, August 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown.
Mr. Lovewell, who works as reporter and photographer at the Vineyard Gazette, has been writing and singing songs about the Vineyard’s maritime history for many years.
On this evening, he will shift his attention to the commercial and recreational fishermen of the Island community. What makes a lobster pot work? Who are these fishermen and where do they go? What makes them laugh?
The 14th annual Edgartown Yacht Club 12-metre regatta is this weekend. This year 10 boats are expected for two days of racing, beginning tomorrow.
These are among the fastest big sailboats of the sea. Each has had its days of glory in trying to win the America’s Cup. The boats are between 60 and 70 feet in length, require a sizable crew to sail and often have huge colorful spinnakers. Many of them are coming from Newport. Starting today, they’ll be tied up at the Edgartown Yacht Club.