The International Sunfish Class Association announced the selection of Zim Sailing, Bristol, Rhode Island, as a new builder and supplier of class-approved boats and parts, which will come as welcome news to devotees of the classic centerboard dinghy introduced in 1952 and still racing globally.

According to a statement from Zim Sailing, class-legal boats will be built at its facilities in Bristol, alongside their other offerings (Flying Juniors, and their 420E). Zim is also currently building ILCAs, and is reported to be in the final approval stages with World Sailing before ramping up full production of US-built ILCAs.

The appointment of Zim Sailing is seen as a long overdue development for US and South American Sunfish sailors and dealers who’ve been challenged with supply issues over the past few years, with regard to boats and parts. Zim Sailing also brings to table an extensive dealer network and the ability to support events, as it does with its other institutional classes and recreational boats.

“Zim Sailing is thrilled to take up this exciting opportunity to bring production of a classic

sailboat back to Rhode Island,” said George Yioulos, Zim Sailing CEO. “Our team is extremely

excited and are already working hard to hit the ground running. We look forward to supporting the thousands of sailors already sailing ISCA boats, and long term being good stewards of this historic class.”

According to the release, Zim’s in-house production team is already advanced for production to begin next year, and if the sample builds are approved by the class and World Sailing, boats and parts should be available by the summer of 2025. Pricing is not finalized, but the builder says, “it is expected that prices will be similar to current.”
The International Sunfish Class Association met at its World Council meeting held in

Heath, Texas, at the recently concluded World Championship to approve Zim’s builder status. “They will be producing a top-quality boat that will be competitive with our existing class-approved boats, which will help accelerate the class’ current growth,” said ICSA president, Guillermo Cappelleti. “And with manufacturing in the US, distribution to our core markets of North, Central and South American will be simpler, faster and more efficient.”

Zim, the release states, “will support the class by providing charter boats at the North Americans, Worlds, and other events. There will also be a certification fee paid on boats and equipment, which will be used to help grow the class.”

The post Zim Secures Sunfish Class Builder Status appeared first on Sailing World.

This second Thursday in January is a perfect Florida winter morning, the sort of weather the local chamber of commerce dials up regularly—a light easterly breeze barely ruffling the shallow, pristine waters of Sarasota Bay. Along the beach that fronts the busy Sarasota Sailing Squadron, there is commotion; like every early Thursday morn from September through May, several dozen seasoned gals known as the Luffing Lassies, almost all with their diverse and accomplished working lives in the rearview mirror—and none of whom will be remotely mistaken for college kids—are rigging up their prams, 420s and Sunfish for their weekly fix of sailboat racing. This particular Thursday, however, is somewhat different: It is the running of the 24th Annual Lilly Kaighan Memorial Regatta, so named for the Lassies’ founder, the somewhat obsessed sailing lady who came up with the idea for this organized madness in the first place—some five decades ago.

My introduction to this uncharted world is a ­fellow Rhode Island snowbird like myself, on hiatus from the New England winter for a few months. Before her recent retirement, Lee Parks was the inshore director at US Sailing for 33 years, but she’s also a lifelong Sunfish racer. “I never outgrew my junior boat,” she says. “The class has a culture that’s just phenomenal.”

She’d competed in midwinter Sunfish regattas in Sarasota many times and considered it a premier venue for dinghy racing, but she never knew about the Luffing Lassies until she inherited a property nearby, was introduced to the group, and quickly became one of them.

“They envelop you,” she says.

Lee loves the weekly competition but adds: “The biggest, best thing they do is bring in new people to the sport, teach them to sail, and give them an outlet to the water. They’re so welcoming.”

And so is she, inviting me to walk the beach while she makes some introductions.

So, thanks to Lee, there I find myself, chatting up the Lassies. And, oh my, what a story they have to tell. These days, there’s much hand-wringing from cranky old men like myself about the decline in sailboat racing. But here on the Gulf coast of Florida, where geezers abound, the Luffing Lassies and their 700 counterparts in the Florida Women’s Sailing Association, comprised of nine yacht clubs from Dunedin to Venice (the Salty Sisters from St. Petersburg, the Dinghy Dames from Davis Island, the Mainsheet Mamas from Tampa, the Windlasses from Dunedin, and so on) represent nothing less than a sailing renaissance, where they’re having trouble figuring out where the new members in the ever-expanding fleets will store their boats. They admit it’s a fine problem to have.

Is there something here that the Luffing Lassies can tell us about sailboat racing that perhaps should be obvious? Like, if you form a group that’s open, accommodating, friendly and supportive, and you invite just about anyone sharing the same mindset who wants to learn and challenge themselves, you can come up with something cool, unique and wonderful, where people dive in and thrive? As in, if you build it, they will come? The Lassies, I discover, in both their long history and unrivaled passion for sailing, have quite a bit to say about it all.

Ursula Olson has been there from the beginning, before the Luffing Lassies taught and introduced more than 500 women to the sport, back when it was originally known as the Sarasota Sailing and Sinking Society. “We used to capsize quite a bit,” she confesses.

Olson, who tells me she’s been a Lassie for 44 of the 50 years they’ve been in existence, says the organization was launched when Kaighan, a recent arrival from Tampa where she’d started a similar group, approached a handful of women about doing the same thing in Sarasota.

“She had two Clearwater Prams (a close cousin to the Opti) and said she had access to three more, so there were five boats,” Olson says. “Learning to sail was very attractive to many, including myself. The message always was: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you.’ She was absolutely the most accommodating, positive person. And she attracted those kinds of people. Some come and go quickly because they don’t want to mess up their hair or their fingernails. But that’s not who we are. There are about 90 Lassies today, ranging in age from their 30s to their 90s. Our 90-year-old still sails, not racing, but on a Hobie Wave we have for fun sailing. Everybody feels like they belong. It’s empowering. I’d say 95 percent of my friends are from this group. I’ve definitely found my tribe.”

That tribe, I soon learn, is an accomplished one, whose previous occupations include airline pilots, lawyers, doctors, even a federal judge. Then there’s Linda Schwartz, who joined the Lassies in 2009 after retiring to Sarasota following a career in the Army as a chief warrant officer.

“I was working out in the gym when somebody asked if I was interested in joining a women’s sailing group,” she says. “Yes, I was! I knew immediately when I walked in that this was for me. This isn’t mahjong; we’re a pretty Type A bunch. Actually, we’re a sisterhood. You put us all together, and we’re a force to be reckoned with.”

Schwartz, a former FWSA president with a solid mechanical background running Army maintenance units, has earned the nickname “Miss MacGyver.” She oversees the platoon of “Maintenance Mamas” who work on the 15 Sunfish the Lassies keep for training newcomers in the offseason summer months when they aren’t actively racing. Once the newbies get a season of racing under their belts, they generally procure their own boats, and the cycle repeats itself.

“We have a long-term planning committee now because we’ve gotten so big and are growing so much,” Schwartz says. “How do we manage it? We’re outgrowing the area we have at the Squadron. Our group has always been about word of mouth. The locals always knew. But now we’re getting more publicity, which means more women. It gets complicated.”

Once everybody is rigged and ready after a skipper’s meeting, which commences with laughter, stretching and calisthenics, I hop aboard the safety boat to observe the on-the-water action with a pair of the so-called “Starboard Studs” (everyone gets a nickname), the male volunteers from the Squadron who man the race committee and mark boats. “When the whole #metoo thing happened, they thought about changing our name,” says studly Pete Buros, one of the safety officers. “Instead, they gave us shirts with the name on it. They’re fun to wear in bars.” Buros intimates that they are excellent conversation-starters.

Before heading out, Lorri Kaighan—the daughter-in-law of founder Lilly, who succumbed to breast cancer at far too young an age—hands me a copy of the day’s schedule, which reads:

“The Lilly Kaighan Memorial Regatta is a special day for all Luffing Lassies. It celebrates its founder by having its members participate in a typical day of competition by racing in Clearwater Prams, a Sunfish or a 420. (The Prams and 420s had three boats each; with 30 boats, the Sunfish has become the group’s predominant class.) And the course is the original one that has been sailed by the Lassies for over 45 years: Modified Olympic (for the Sunfish and 420s) and Triangle for the Pram. It is a day filled with camaraderie, good competition, special trophies, and a luncheon to celebrate the day. The perpetual trophies were handmade by Lilly’s oldest son, Jim Kaighan, who resides in Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas. Lorri Kaighan made the individual trophies this year. And they were definitely made with a lot of love.”

With that, the fun begins.

Three races unfold, the first two in a light southeasterly, the third in a building westerly as the sea breeze kicks in. There is a disparity in prowess and efficiency on the starting line. A handful of competitors several rows deep seem not to have gotten the memo that there’d be racing today, which I realize is utterly beside the point. “Everyone who competes is a winner” is somewhat of a cliché, of course, but in this event, it is absolutely true. There are some midfleet clusters at the top mark, and some obvious fouls committed by the tail-enders, but not a raised voice to be heard. It’s all so…conversational and punctuated with laughter, so totally refreshing.

All that said, the sailing is crisp, clean and very, very competitive at the front of the busy Sunfish fleet. There is also a clear, dominant competitor, a mere wisp of a woman on a Sunfish called Wild Child named Lisa Brown Ehrhart, who runs away with the Memorial Regatta with three straight bullets.

Like every Lassie, it seems, Ehrhart has a unique background. Originally from the Virgin Islands, where her family ran a yacht-management business, for years she worked as a professional captain, delivering boats and skippering charters. Though she never raced sailboats in the islands, she says: “I had the gift of growing up on the water. There are many people who are better than me in terms of tactics, the chess game. But I do understand the water, as a surfer and windsurfer, and maybe that’s the only piece I have that’s a little different.”

When she moved to Florida so her kids could attend high school, she immersed herself in dinghy racing for the first time. “I needed to get on the water and sail, and I discovered the Lassies,” she says. “It was very humbling to start off with. But I’ve grown to love it. It’s the culture that’s so amazing. It’s like a Caribbean vibe, so relaxed.”

At 5 feet and 100 pounds, Ehrhart says the regatta’s two early light-air races played perfectly to her strengths. And she credits professional sailing coach Mike Ingham—whose wife, Delia, is a Lassie and recently organized a new Sunfish fleet at the Sailing Squadron—with “truly helping me develop my newly acquired racing skills.”

But, like every other Lassie I speak with, it is her fellow Luffing mates that really make the difference. “There are some really talented, amazing women here,” she says. “We learn from each other. We’re just really passionate about being here and sailing together.”

So, what to make of all this? It’s pretty simple. In these divisive days, when we fret about politics and the economy and every other bloody thing, at least one thing in this madcap, crazy world of ours is certain: The Lassies will be back at it next Thursday, bright and early.

The post Sarasota Sailing’s Luffing Lassies appeared first on Sailing World.

Excerpt from Second Wind, by Nathaniel Philbrick. Published by arrangement with Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright (c) 2018 by Nathaniel Philbrick.

On Friday, April 23, Bruce Perry, a friend who was the administrator of the Conservation Commission on Nantucket, called to tell me the town was opening Sesachacha Pond that day. All winter he’d heard me talking about my dream of one day sailing “through the cut.” As it turned out, we were scheduled to have dinner with Bruce and his family that night, and since he planned to watch the cut’s completion that afternoon, he said he’d tell me about it in the evening.

Bruce and family lived in what’s called an upside-down house (bedrooms downstairs, living room and dining room upstairs) overlooking Long Pond in Madaket on the western end of the island. It was the perfect place to hear about a pond opening. Apparently, Sesachacha had been at a record high, so when the cut was finally completed, it had come roaring out in a way that dwarfed the relative trickle I had seen in October. Bruce recounted how fish and even eels were caught up in the rush of water that had quickly carved out an opening the size of a small river. If anything, it should be even bigger by the next afternoon when I planned to go sailing.

“But, Nat,” Bruce cautioned, “it’s nothing to fool around with. There’s an awful lot of power in that pond. And once you’re out there in the ocean, you’re gone.”

That evening, during the drive back into town, I promised Melissa that I was more curious than I was determined to sail through the cut. I just wanted to take a look. And, to be truthful, Bruce’s words had a sobering effect. I wasn’t going to go dashing out there like the Lone Ranger. I didn’t want to wreck my boat or drown myself. I really didn’t.

I spent Saturday morning in the Nantucket Atheneum, the town library. The building, particularly in the wing where the archives were stored, had a Miss Havisham feel to it, as though it were still suspended in a time that the world had long since passed by. Although a spectacular and much-needed renovation project has given the building a whole new ambiance, that morning in the spring of 1993, as I read my way through a stack of ancient letters, I felt as if I too were a kind of artifact blanketed with dust.

By the time I set out for Sesachacha around 1 in the afternoon, I was anxious to wash off the past and rejoin the present. Melissa, the kids and Molly were in the car with me. The plan was this: They’d help me with the boat on the southern end of the pond, then drive over to the other side, where they’d walk the quarter mile or so to the cut. The subject of my sailing through the cut was studiously avoided.

When we pulled up to the launch ramp, the pond seemed higher than ever. In the distance, we could see the backhoe over on the barrier beach, but from our perspective it looked as though the cut might have closed in overnight — at least that was the claim of an elderly gentleman who’d brought his two dogs for a walk along the pond’s edge. “I tell ya,” he said, “they should let the old-timers do this kind of thing. These scientific guys don’t know what the hell they’re doin’ when it comes to pond openings.”

I was reserving judgment. Appearances, particularly when you’re looking at a distant beach, can be deceiving.

The breeze was moderate out of the southwest with plenty of peppy puffs. Soon I was sailing on a beam reach toward where the cut, if there was one, should be. I passed a father and his son fishing in a motorboat. As I entered the midsection of the pond, I saw that Melissa, the kids and Molly had parked and were now walking along the pond’s edge toward the ocean. I waved, but they were too far away to notice.

It was then I realized that there was a cut. It was wider than I would ever have imagined — maybe 30 to 50 feet. A virtual torrent of water was rushing through the opening, a white-water river that must have been close to an eighth of a mile long as it curved out toward the sea and collided with the ocean’s surf in a distant intermingling of brown and blue waters. I now knew what Bruce had meant when he had spoken of the pond’s power, a power that showed no signs of waning more than 24 hours after it had first been tapped.

Someone was standing on the northern edge of the pond cut. After watching me for a while, he waved and called out to me. It was Bruce. The question was how to get close enough to speak to him without being immediately sucked out to sea.

I approached cautiously from the north, where a sandbar had been formed by the turbulence at the cut’s opening.

“Bruce!” I shouted. “What do you think?” “Don’t do it! The current is really ripping!”

I decided to sail past the pond opening just to give it a look. Although I could feel the current grab my boat, torquing it seaward with a trembling, atavistic lurch, the cut wasn’t the all-consuming portal to destruction that I had first assumed it would be. There was enough of a breeze to let me flirt along the opening’s edge without losing myself to the current.

The cut was wide. There was plenty of space for me to sail through it, even with my sail all the way out. It also looked fairly deep. I did notice, however, quite a bit of wave action at the end of the cut. In fact, it looked like a sandbar had formed out there. Even if I did make it through the cut alive, how in God’s name was I ever going to sail back to the pond? But still, the opening beckoned.

Suddenly I was filled with a desire to just close my eyes and ­surrender myself to the flow. Meanwhile, Melissa and company were gradually making their way along the beach. Should I wait for them? If I did, I might lose my nerve.

I tacked and began to bear away toward the cut.

The post A Thrill-Seeking Sailor Braves the Rapids of a Breached Nantucket Pond appeared first on Sailing World.

Barbara had never sailed until a week after we met in October 1962, when I invited her to go sailing on my Thistle off City Island, New York. It was blowing about 10 knots, and a friend joined us for additional ballast. ­Barbara was terrific. She hiked out, worked the jib sheet, and was enthralled with the spinnaker. She smiled the entire time.

Later, back onshore, my buddy whispered to me, “She’s a keeper.” Ten months later, we were married.

Six years and two children later, Barbara suggested I buy a Sunfish. I’d seen the multicolored sails racing on Peconic and Southold bays off the North Fork of Long Island, but I had never set foot on one. So in August 1968, we bought the first of 11 Sunfish our family would own over the next 49 years.

Months later, in April 1969, on a crisp spring day with a warm sun and 8-knot breeze, ­Barbara and I set off in our Sunfish across Little Peconic Bay. We were dressed for the occasion, and both of us were looking forward to our first sail of the season. It had been a long time since we’d sailed together, and if Barbara had any qualms, she concealed them well. We beam-reached across the bay, both of us enjoying it immensely. We landed at Nassau Point, and I pulled our Sunfish onto the beach so we could stretch our legs with a short walk. The air started to cool, and after 20 minutes, we opted to sail back.

The breeze hadn’t changed direction or strength, so I guided the boat into the water and pointed its bow out to sea.

The water was 6 inches deep at the stern and a foot deep at the bow. Barbara settled herself on the starboard, windward side with her feet in the cockpit while I held onto the traveler. The mainsheet hung loosely. As I turned around to reach for the boat’s daggerboard, which was lying on the sand about 3 feet away, I heard Barbara suddenly yell for help. A gust of wind was propelling her out to sea on a runaway Sunfish. I sprinted into the ice-cold water with the daggerboard in my hands. The boat was moving faster than I could run. I yelled, “Barbara, catch!” and tossed the daggerboard to her as hard as I could.

The board smacked the rudder and fell into the water behind the boat, but my catlike bride snatched it and dragged it into the boat. As she sailed farther away, I went from waist to ­shoulder deep in the frigid water.

“Put the daggerboard in the slot in the ­middle of the boat,” I hollered.

She did so immediately.

“Grab the rope that’s attached to the boom, and hold it loosely in your right hand,” I then yelled.

She did.

“Hold the steering stick in your left hand. You’re going to turn the boat around so it will head toward me.”

“OK,” said Ms. Cool. The boat was now about 30 feet away and sailing toward the horizon. “Keep the stick pointed in the middle of the boat, and slowly pull the rope toward you.” She did, and the boat accelerated away.

“On three, push the stick away from you as far as you can,” I called after her, my voice trailing away. “As the boat starts turning, move to the opposite side, and put the stick in your right hand and the rope in your left.” She followed directions perfectly, and the Sunfish came about.

I thought for sure that this was the end of my marriage. I plunged into the water and took three or four strokes before the Sunfish sailed right to me. I pushed Barbara back on board, and with me holding onto the side, we sailed the 20 feet or so until I could stand and wade ashore. We made it home safely, in about a half-hour, but it was several years before Barbara agreed to go sailing with me again.

That summer, we joined Southold YC, where our children learned to sail and I helped co-found the “Annual World’s Longest ­Sunfish Race, Around Shelter Island, New York.” I joined the U.S. Sunfish Class Association, and as our children grew older, we participated in many regattas within 150 miles of Long Island. I’ll never forget when our two older boys, Joe and Sean, were 13 and 12 years old, and we competed in the North American Championships in Barrington, Rhode Island. They were racing with about 120 other boats in the ­consolation fleet. Sean was 90 pounds at the time. At the ­lobster dinner that night, we dined with several adult sailors, who talked about how they sat to leeward trying to blow air into their sails while some little kid was hiking out and sailing away from the fleet. That was Sean, of course, who ended up winning the race and finishing in the middle of the fleet with a score of something like 416 and 3/4 points.

After the children had grown, I teamed up with my sailing buddy, Dr. Dick Heinl. We traveled to regattas as far away as Mississippi and Texas, as well as throughout the Northeast. Among those on the Sunfish racing circuit, we became known as the “Thelma and Louise of the Viagra Set.”

Sunfish sailors always have a good time, and last summer, Dick, at age 91, the oldest competitor at the U.S. Masters Championship, received a standing ovation and a walker for his participation.

Over the years, Barbara accompanied me to regattas in Chicago, Upstate New York, Cape Cod and elsewhere. Eventually, she agreed to give Sunfish sailing another try.

We launched off Southold YC and frolicked for more than an hour, sailing on a beautiful and clear summer day with a gentle 10-knot breeze. On the way back to the beach, I asked how she felt.

“This is fun,” she answered. “Just the way I like it.”

“Then you’ll join me again sometime?”

“Yes,” she replied.

In those days, Southold YC had a small T dock extending about 10 feet into the water and then about 18 feet or so parallel to the beach. My plan was to sail alongside the dock and drop off Barbara.

The breeze was favorable for what I wanted to do, and as we approached, I noticed a few young children playing at one end of the parallel dock. I approached the other end. The water was shallow, and I asked Barbara to lift the daggerboard halfway. She did, and as we came slowly alongside the dock, one of the boys jumped right in front of the boat. I shoved the tiller hard away to avoid the child, and the boom swung over and hit the raised daggerboard. Barbara and I were both sitting to starboard, and the boat capsized in about 2 feet of water. Barbara did a backward somersault into the bay, stood up soaking wet with her hands on her hips, and glared at me in total disbelief.

She did forgive me, however, in the form of a terrific gift for which I shall forever be grateful: my email name “joesunfish.”

It’s the people and the stories that make each class unique. I invite you to share your story, your class. Write me at editor@sailingworld.com so I can share it and make old new again.

To read more stories about sailors who love their one-design classes, new and old, click here.

The post My Class, My Story: The Sunfish appeared first on Sailing World.