Experience Counts
At the start of the final race of the 2008 Atlantic Class National Championship, four teams representing four yacht clubs were within two points of one another, and several others in the fleet of 34 boats still had reason to hope. An hour later, when Ian Evans and his crew in Try Again turned the final leeward mark with a healthy lead and began working their way upwind to the finish, any onlooker who resisted the distraction provided by the panorama of scenic Blue Hill Bay, Maine, would have been convinced that Evans' home team had the series securely trapped in his personal lobster pot. But Evans was in no position to relax. Just behind him, a handful of previous champions were making that last leg very tense indeed.
Two were old-timers from Connecticut. Between them, defending champion Norm Peck Jr., of Niantic Bay YC, and George Reichhelm, of Cedar Point YC, had been racing Atlantics for almost 100 years and had won a total of 25 Nationals. Also in the hunt were two younger former class champions. Norman Peck III-universally known as "Norm III"-has been racing Atlantics for most of his life out of Niantic, first with his father and then on his own. In Cassidy, representing the New York YC, was the new boy as Atlantic sailors go-Adam Walsh, who had raced these 30-footers for only three years. With co-owner Steve Benjamin of North Sails trimming mainsheet, Cassidy was the closest thing to a factory team at Blue Hill. Also in this pack nipping at the heels of Try Again was Henry Brauer's Scamp, from nearby Northeast Harbor.
As they rounded, Cassidy went hard right; Reichhelm's Schucks and the others went left. Evans cautiously worked the middle, keeping an eye on both sides of the smooth, picturesque, and maddeningly shifty waters of nearly landlocked Blue Hill Bay.
They have been sailing Atlantics at Blue Hill since the 1930s at the Kollegewidgwok YC, pronounced "College-eh-wigee-wak" by the locals and a few brave visitors. KYC suffices for most people. The name means "fresh salt falls"-a reference to the violent reversing falls stirred up by the change of the extreme local tides at the mouth of a nearby fresh-water inlet. KYC is one of those clubs where the same handsome boats have been sailed forever by generations of the same families and are identified by the names on their transoms, not the numbers on their sails. They take sailing seriously at KYC, with 280 kids in Optis and an active racing program. The sailors, most of them summer people from points south, love their Atlantics, equip them well, and race them hard.
That blend of tradition and modern can also be seen in the Atlantic itself. Reichhelm has been racing Atlantics for over half of his 75 years. "I like the people," he says, "and almost everybody has a family crew-and the boat's so pretty and exciting." Four of the boats fighting for the lead in that last race had at least two relatives in the crew. As did many more further down the standings.
From a distance the Atlantic has the breathtakingly graceful appearance of the Star and other over-rigged boats designed before 1930, with the low freeboard, snubbed bow, and big mainsail. Come closer and take a peek at the center console, tapered spinnaker sheets, and other gadgets, and you see that this boat's not stuck in the 1920s. Take a ride in a good breeze, and the excitement is vital.
The boat was designed by one of the most original minds of his generation, W. Starling Burgess. A sailor and also a pioneering airplane pilot and builder, Burgess was far ahead of his contemporaries in his understanding of aerodynamics and the power of the new Marconi rig. His innovative Marconi-rigged staysail schooner Niña was still winning races 40 years after she was launched in 1928. In the 1930s he produced the designs for three America's Cup winners. Co-designer Olin Stephens credited Burgess for the lion's share of the shape of the nearly invincible Ranger.
Working with the German boatyard Abeking & Rasmussen in the 1920s, Burgess produced numerous racing boats that were shipped to America. First came one-design 12-, 10-, and 8-Meters and Universal Rule M-boats. Then, in 1928, he designed a new 30-foot one-design keelboat to meet the growing demand for day racers. Burgess spent that summer sailing a prototype around from yacht club to yacht club promoting a class he called the Atlantic Coast One-Design (the name was changed to a simpler Atlantic, probably because there was interest on the West Coast).
