Photo: Niagara seen from Pride of Baltimore II. Photo courtesy of Jeff Crosby

Date: Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Position: Somewhere in Lake Huron

Pride of Baltimore II wins second place on handicap results.

The vessel Fair Jeanne was the first Place Winner on handicap. Niagara is the winner of third place.

In terms of the actual order of vessels crossing the finish line, it was HMCS Oriole, Pride of Baltimore II, Niagara, Denis Sullivan, & Fair Jeanne.

What is interesting to me about this race is the last vessel to cross the starting line is also the last vessel to cross the finish line. But still, become the overall winner based on handicap.

Handicaps are interesting puzzles. I have sailed Pride with several different handicap rules. The “tall ship” handicap is the fairest of them all for comparing the huge spread of different types of vessels in the sail training community worldwide.

The race was in quite light winds. For almost half the race the wind was near a beam reach. During which Niagara was holding her own with Pride. Occasionally going faster.

Halfway along the racecourse, the wind veered behind. So all of the vessels were needing to go straight downwind. Some vessels do that very well. Pride does not. So we wound up altering course to keep the wind on her quarter. Which meant not steering directly toward the finish. Near the finish line Pride’s crew did a great job with jibbing the rig. Including taking down the studding-sail and resetting it on the new reach.

Captain Jan C. Miles