A pair of New England sailors captured the first-ever national championships for single-handed racing in the Bullseye and H-12 classes in a five-race regatta Saturday, September 17, on Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts.
Chris Verni, of Westwood, MA, and Laurie Knight, of Marion, MA, are the new national champion single-handed racers in Bullseye and H-12 classes, respectively. Both dominated their fleets by wide margins.
Chris Collings of Marion, MA, who had been injured two months prior, came off the bench to take second place in the Bullseye class, and Chris Streit, of Cos Cob, CT and Key Largo, FL, took third place. Second- and third-place honors in the H-12 competition went to Mark Adams of Wareham, MA, and Ron Wisner of Marion, MA, respectively.
These were the inaugural single-handed races of a new national championship in the two sailboat classes. Racing of Bullseyes and H-12s with crews of two or three have been a fixture of East Coast sailing for decades. This year’s regatta was hosted by the Beverly Yacht Club in Marion. The Bullseye Sailing Association has already agreed to host next year’s single-handed nationals in Maine, said Chris Collings.
Competitors this year registered from Massachusetts, Maine, New York and Florida.
The competitors had to contend with light, shifty breezes through much of the day.
Chris Collings and Ed Tiffany, both perennial top contenders in crewed racing, did much of the organizational work. However, neither claims to be “the guy in charge,” said Collings. Many others have stepped up to do vital work. “I tend to see myself as a member of a flash mob,” Collings said.
The Beverly Yacht Club has an unusually large and active Bullseye fleet and has fielded a formidable squad of boats year after year for the crewed Nationals. Many veterans of those campaigns were part of the new single-handed Nationals, either as competitors or as race officials, Collings said.
Bullseye and H-12 sailors are an especially dogged breed of one-design racers. All through the regular racing season, said Collings, single-handers compete even though class rules make it impossible for them to advance to Nationals.
The Bullseye Sailing Association polled some 220 members and learned that 70% wanted single-handers to have their own national competition. Collings said a smaller cadre of H-12 solo sailors then asked whether they could be included. “The message was clear that these races were meeting a previously unmet need,” he said.
Ed Tiffany reports that creating the new single-handed class prompted at least four new skippers to join the Bullseye Sailing Association in order to become eligible to compete in last week’s Nationals.