C.R.A.N.N.E. Sailing

This was the second year of this event held in Madison CT the weekend before Memorial Day weekend. A few of us had gone down last year and had a great time. The event is run by a group of young adults that have gone through Joe’s sailing program. With support from their parents, other community members and the town, they are able to keep the spirit of Joe alive. The regatta is held at the town’s beach facility and community center on the Long Island Sound which is perfect for the event. The nice beach is sandy and short with no surf to get through.

This year, CRANNE sent 3 F-18’s to make up half of the F-18 Fleet and a Nacra 6.0, one of the 11 boats that made up the open fleet. Craig and Ricardo sailed Craig’s Infusion, Nick and Paul sailed their Nacra F-18, John and Jim sailed John’s Tiger and Scott Malcolm and Hugh sailed Scott’s 6.0. Registration included; 2 t-shirts, 2 dinner tickets and continental breakfast both mornings.

After about an hour postponement for fog the fleet was sent out to sail Saturday morning. The wind throughout the day built up to around 20 with gusts approaching 30. This allowed the race committee to get in 6 nice races (2/1, 6/5, 6/5, 6/5, 6/5, 5/5) around a fairly long ACG course. The facility allowed the spectators to watch the racing from the beach with an easterly wind.

Once back to the beach, we had about a couple of hours to get cleaned up prior to dinner. The buffet style dinner was in the community center building looking over the beach and consisted of chicken, pasta, salad and cookies. Pictures from the day were projected up on the wall and encouraged stories recalling the day’s events. After dinner the raffle was held where about 25 prizes were distributed.

Sunday was bitter and cold with a strong wind from the north. No one seemed disappointed that the race committee called for a postponement. After a couple of postponements, the F-18 fleet decided to pack it in for the weekend and started taking boats apart assuming results would not change either way. The open fleet finally went out for a single race, 5 boats short.

Results are:


Watch the Garvin Point Sailing Club website for pictures to be posted. I’m looking forward to attending this event again next year.