Phrf

With July 4 falling on Thursday, boaters will have a chance to set up a long weekend on Maryland waters of the Chesapeake Bay and the state's many rivers and creeks, and a few simple precautions will help ensure that the fireworks are limited to staged displays.According to U.S. Coast Guard statistics, July is the most dangerous month for boating mishaps, perhaps because the onset of warm weather encourages virtually everyone with a boat to go out.The National Marine Manufacturers Association urges holiday boaters to follow three basic rules:Designate a skipper who won't drink alcoholic beverages while operating the boat.

This year's Annapolis Yacht Club Fall Series, staged over the past three weekends, drew plenty of local and regional interest.Some 100 IMS, J/35, and PHRF A and B sailors were on the course on Saturdays, with similar numbers of PHRF C, MORC, and cruising one-design sailors competing on Sundays.IMS numbers continue to be light locally, but PHRF A-1 and A- 2 hit 31 and 41 entries, respectively, bringing the PHRF overall fleet numbers for the Saturday racing to 89 entries.AYC traditionally has scored both PHRF and IMS not only in individual class splits, but also as total fleets for Fall Series.

There was a big turnout among Star sailors last weekend, when 25 teams from as far away as southern California, the Midwest and New England arrived at the Tred Avon Yacht Club in Oxford for the 45th annual Oxford Fall Windups regatta.Winning overall was Elliott Oldak of Annapolis and his crew Paul Amlong, with a 2-1 finish. They edged Bill Allen and Chuck Neville from Willamette, Ill., at 1-3.The fleet was somewhat larger than usual and contained more out-of-town boats, due to the Star North American Championships, which will be at West River Sailing Club in Galesville Oct. 23-29.

The annual Hospice Cup regatta, put on by Shearwater Sailing Club as a fund-raising event to benefit seven area hospice organizations in the Annapolis/Baltimore/Washington area, was a hit in accomplishing both of its goals last Saturday.A good day of racing was combined with a record-breaking success in fund-raising, exceeding the event's projected goal of $300,000.One feature of the Hospice Cup is a nonspinnaker Hospice Class for sailors and boats, which do not normally race. This class has been growing in popularity, and this year had 17 starters, with the top slot and the Martin F. McCarthy Memorial Trophy going to Cathy Kreitzer and crew aboard Friend.

Last weekend's Annapolis Yacht Club annual regatta was a big one, drawing a fleet of about 60 big boats from the three PHRF A splits, PHRF B, and the J/35 class for a 7.7-mile windward-leeward chase that was accomplished in short order despite only moderate breezes and shifty and lumpy conditions.The next day brought out a 72-boat fleet of smaller cruising one-designs plus PHRF C and MORC racers for a similar contest in slightly heavier air.Winning the always competitive 18-boat PHRF A-2 division by a handy margin of more than a minute over second-placer Neil Murphy and his Bird of Prey crew was Annapolis sailor Chuck Coyer and the team aboard Accomplice.

Last weekend was one of the busiest of the year for the little Eastern Shore town of Oxford, as the annual summer regatta descended upon the Tred Avon Yacht Club, bringing big boats and one-design racers in droves to share the fun.The big boats of the seven mid-Chesapeake PHRF splits, along with MORC and Triton racers, began the event last Friday with a race from Annapolis to Oxford. In light and dying breeze, however, even with the course shortened to 21.2 miles from its originally scheduled length of 29 miles, dozens of dropouts were unable to finish the race, and many classes showed a wide variation in finish times.

Annapolis Yacht Club's Summer Regatta in J/22s last weekend was dominated by Dave Zinn and his team on Fine . . .Whatever, which cleaned up in the five-race series with finishes FTC of 1-1-2-4-2 to top the 25-plus boat fleet in tight competition.The margin of victory over second-place Drew Donald and his team on Frolic was 12 points.In the sticky weather, consistency was the key to success, and results for most of the other top teams were a mixed bag of finishes, while Zinn's crew stayed mostly in the top two.Donald and his veteran team managed to win two consecutive contests in the series, however, staying out of the double-digit finishes that hurt the rest of the top contenders.

This year's Eastport Yacht Club Solomons Island Invitational race from Annapolis to Solomons began under threatening skies on Friday evening, July 21, in the Severn River and didn't begin to finish in the Patuxent off Solomons until well after daybreak.Of the 160 starters in 13 classes (including one crew double-registered in both J/29 one-design and MORC), nearly 130 stuck it out to the finish despite agonizingly late arrival times stretching well into the sweltering early afternoon.Three different courses were used, with PHRF A-0 sailing a 67-mile version, and the smallest boats of PHRF C and D, the Alberg 30s, and Pearson 30s completing a 45-mile stretch, while the rest of the fleet sailed the traditional 55-mile course down around Hooper Island Light before turning into the approach to Solomons.

This year's Virginia Cruising Cup race from Annapolis to Hampton, Va., drew a PHRF fleet of 36 starters in five splits for the annual 120-mile chase down the Bay, beginning Friday morning, July 7.PHRF A-1 winner Rick Born of Baltimore brought the crew aboard his J/35 Grayling in for the win by a comfortable margin of nearly 40 minutes in class and posted the best finish in the fleet to win the Virginia Cruising Cup.Born described his team's 23-plus-hour contest...

Blue Yankee, a 46-footer designed by Bruce Farr of Annapolis for the upcoming Admiral's Cup sailing competition in England, was the overall winner of the Annapolis-Newport race completed last week.Blue Yankee, owned by Robert Towse of Connecticut, was the third boat to finish the race, but its corrected time moved it into first place (2 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes and 4 seconds).Larry Bulman of Annapolis, sailing Javelin, won the race among the PHRF fleet in Class III.Crescendo, Stephen Hiltabidle's Farr 37, won Class IV, 21 minutes ahead of Incessant, Paul Kaplan's Baltic 42. Hiltabidle is from Annapolis and Kaplan is from Galesville.