The Atlantic Cup: East Meets West
The Atlantic Cup, an event designed for the box-rule Class 40s, wrapped up in Portland, Maine, over the weekend, with Bay Area sailmaker Sylvain Barrielle sailing aboard Oakcliff Racing. The event has two doublehanded offshore legs — Charleston to New York and New York to Portland — and then two days of inshore, crewed racing among the islands of Casco Bay. Sylvain, who jumped aboard Oakcliff Sailing’s Class 40 in New York for the doublehanded leg to Portland, discovered some classic East Coast sailing conditions with challenging offshore winds, big wind holes in the New York-to-Portland leg and then beautiful, 8- to 17-knot inshore racing.
Turns out a couple of other West Coasters were in the fleet. Sean O’Halloran from Santa Clara, who started sailing at Scout camp in Sonoma but is now a coach with Oakcliff Sailing, sailed with Sylvain in the inshore racing. Micah Davis, from Mill Valley (an ‘expat’ Mainer), is a partner in third-place finisher Amhas (Gaelic for the seabird gannet). Micah’s sailing life started in Harpswell, ME, and had taken him all over the world. Despite living in Mill Valley, his current sailing mostly revolves around East Coast Class 40 sailing.
To get an idea of what the Class 40 is like look no further than Buzz Blackett’s Jim Antrim-designed California Condor. In the Atlantic the Class 40 has lots of fans with more than 50 boats registered for the Route du Rhum and more on the waiting list. The Atlantic Cup had a very competitive fleet of 11 with Eärendil coming out on top, followed by Toothface and Micah Davis’ Amhas. Micah sang the praises of the Class 40 design as a fantastic long-distance offshore design but loads of fun to shift gears for the short-course inshore racing. He’s got more sailing plans for the Atlantic in the short term but also is looking to get a Transpac on Amhas’ schedule for the future.
With not much time in the boat Sylvain and Sean faced some challenges, but smoothed things out, dialed in the boat, and ended up the series with some strong finishes and a sixth overall.
With the first boats launched in 2006, there are now quite a few Class 40s in the world. Their popularity for long-distance, shorthanded, offshore racing seems very well established in the Atlantic. We’ll have to see if Amhas and a few others ever make it West to take on the Pacific’s great offshore challenges.