united states new york yacht club

ORC Finds Strength in Numbers for New York Yacht Club's 169th Annual Regatta

Newport, R.I., USA -  Rating rules may make noise with the large custom raceboats, but it’s the rank and file that drive sustained success. The 74-foot Bella Mente will likely be the most eye-catching boat competing under the ORC rating rule at the 2023 edition of the New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta, June 9 to 11 . But it’s the plethora of racer-cruisers from 30 to 45 feet in length that are the real proof that ORC has established itself in the United States.

With just under a month to go until the first gun, the ORC fleet for the 169th running of North America’s oldest recurring regatta stands at 33 boats and is well positioned to best last year’s fleet of 39 boats. The record of 49 boats, set in 2021, isn’t out of reach. A total of 88 boats are currently registered for the Annual Regatta.

“Switching rating rules, as the Club did in 2020, going to ORC from IRC, always comes with a few challenges,” says Peter Cummiskey , the event chair for the Annual Regatta. “But our sailors were demanding a rating formula that better handles how different boats perform in varying wind strengths. ORC has delivered tremendous racing, especially at the smaller end of the size range.”

The New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta was first sailed on the Hudson River on July 16 and 18, 1846. A similar competition the previous year was called a Trial of Speed. With a few exceptions for world wars and other global crises, the event has been held every year since. For the majority of its existence, the Annual Regatta was raced on waters close to New York City. Since 1988, however, the event has been sailed out of the Harbour Court clubhouse in Newport, R.I., and has settled into the current three-day format, which includes a race around Conanicut Island on Friday, two days of buoy or navigator-course racing on Saturday and Sunday and nightly social activities on the grounds of the historic Harbour Court mansion. The 169th Annual Regatta is sponsored by Hammetts Hotel and Helly Hansen . Preliminary Scratch Sheet for 169th Annual Regatta

Vince and Kristina McAteer’s Summit 35 Divided Sky  has been one of the most active PHRF programs on Narragansett Bay for the past decade and is no stranger to the podium at the Annual Regatta. “My wife and I have always referred to PHRF as ‘perfectly happy racing family,’” says Vince McAteer (East Greenwich, R.I.). “As our kids have gotten older, and more mature, so has their appetite for steeper competition, hence the shift to ORC. Last year was a fun turning point for the program as we had many junior sailors in key positions on the boat. My then 13-year-old, Vincent, was our primary helm for half the season; and when he was off the helm, he was on the bow with other junior sailors from our yacht club. The excitement from the middle schoolers and high schoolers on the team was infectious. It certainly made the rest of us raise our game.” The Club’s selection as the host for the 2024 ORC World Championship has created a spark of enthusiasm in the Northeast. The last time a rating-rule world championship was held in the United States was 23 years ago when the New York Yacht Club hosted the 2000 IMS World Championship. The New York Yacht Club was scheduled to host a combined IRC/ORC World Championship in 2020, but the COVID pandemic forced the cancellation of that event.

For the Divided Sky program, and many others, the Annual Regatta in 2023 is a key steppingstone in the preparation for the Worlds in 2024. “We are targeting the 2024 Worlds, so racing ORC at the Annual Regatta seems like the right thing to do to be ready,” says Vince McAteer. “We will try and race with the rule whenever possible leading up to next year‘s event. We don’t know too much about how the boat performs in ORC, but we are well aware of [Summit 35 designer] Mark Mills’ success in penning boats that perform well across all rating formulas.”

To find proof of the Mills pedigree under ORC, McAteer need not look far. Winning the ORC 4 division in last year’s Annual Regatta was Ben Chigier’s Summit 40 Escape Velocity 2 , also designed by Mills.

"We had a great crew and, of course, Stan Schreyer is a really great captain,” says Chigier , of Manchester, Mass. “We foster good communication and work hard to enable everybody to work well together, and we got lucky. Lots of things went our way, but mostly it’s the crew.”

Chigier won three straight races to start last year’s weekend series and hung on for a win over a trio of J/122s. Repeating the feat will only be more difficult this year as five J/122s are currently registered under ORC, in addition to a number of other competitive teams in that size range. “We’re fortunate to have many of the same crew planning to be back with us this year and hope we can do well again,” says Chigier. “We are a great team, and we always have fun racing in Newport.” At this stage, Chigier says he is undecided on the 2024 ORC World Championship. He plans to race under ORC in the Annual Regatta and the ORC East Coast Championships, hosted by the New York Yacht Club in July, and reevaluate after that.

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New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta will showcase strong ORC Fleet

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Text: New York Yacht Club Photos: Paul Todd/OutsideImages.com, Alexela ORC Worlds 2021/Felix Diemar

The Holy Grail, the Fountain of Youth, the perfectly equitable rating formula for racing sailboats. Three things not yet discovered. But that didn’t, and won’t likely ever, stop Indiana Jones, Juan Ponce de León, and sailors around the world—respectively—from trying.   In 2020, the New York Yacht Club turned to ORC to handicap its performance racing fleet. This summer will mark the Club’s third season with the rule, which is administered by the  Offshore Racing Congress . The ORC Rule is managed in the United States by the  Offshore Office of US Sailing . The registration numbers for the ORC fleet for the upcoming 168th edition of the New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta speak to the rule’s growing acceptance in the United States. With two weeks remaining until the first start of North America’s oldest annual regatta on Friday, June 10, the ORC fleet stands at 40 boats, ranging in length from 33 to 74 feet.

What is ORC? What changes are in store for 2022?  How can I succeed? Click  here  for a Q&A with NYYC Rating and Measurement Rules Committee Chair Ed Cesare 

“The first Annual Regatta in 1846 utilized an early handicap formula to score the boats and so has every non-wartime edition since,” says Peter Cummiskey, the event chair for the regatta. “It’s never easy to get sailors to embrace a new rating rule, so we’re very pleased to see how many boats are lining up to compete under ORC. We anticipate some great racing.”

The  New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta  was first sailed on the Hudson River on July 16 and 18, 1846. A similar competition the previous year was called a Trial of Speed. With a few exceptions for world wars and other global crises, the event has been held every year since. For the majority of its existence, the Annual Regatta was raced on waters close to New York City. Since 1988, however, the event has been sailed out of the Harbour Court clubhouse in Newport, R.I., and has settled into the current three-day format, which includes a race around Conanicut Island on Friday, two days of buoy or navigator-course racing on Saturday and Sunday and nightly social activities on the grounds of the historic Harbour Court mansion. The 168th Annual Regatta is sponsored by Hammetts Hotel, Safe Harbor Marinas and Helly Hansen. The return of the  Maxi 72 class  to the Annual Regatta for the first time since 2016 will add a shot of speed and glamour to the regatta. Three of the 72-foot ocean thoroughbreds will compete in this year’s Annual Regatta. Hap Fauth’s  Bella Mente  program has been mainstay on the maxi yacht circuit for well over a decade and has recorded plenty of significant victories. But at Les Voiles de St. Barths in April, it was Jim Swartz’s  Vesper  (above) that had the edge in a two-boat battle, winning four of five races. George Sakellaris’  Proteus  will join that duo for the Annual Regatta. “It’s incredibly exciting,” says Swartz. “Match racing  Bella Mente  in big seas at St. Barths was as fun as it gets. Adding a third player will take it to the next level.” In the other classes, the speeds may be lower, but the fleets will be bigger, and the competition equally as intense. Among the newcomers to ORC this year is John Brim, who will hit the line with his Italia 11.98  Rima98 , which he acquired earlier this spring. Brim is no stranger to handicap racing, having owned a 48-footer, 60-footer and a 55-footer, each of which he raced under the IMS and IRC rules more than a decade ago. Of late, he’s focused on one-design racing—on standard windward-leeward courses—in the J/70 and IC37 classes. Last summer, during the New York Yacht Club’s Annual Cruise, he realized maybe he was missing something.  “I remembered the fun of going point-to-point,” says Brim. “I realized that has been a missing dimension because I’d been sailing the last eight years in J/70s and a couple of years the IC37s. I said, ‘This is fun.’ It was fun to also compute who won at the end of the day using the ORC handicaps. It was something different after many, many years of one-design sailing.”

Brim is also excited that the boat (a sister ship is at left) will allow him to sail with a largely amateur crew. “It’s not a full-on race boat,” he said. “I’m going to back to where I used to be and I’m looking forward to it.” Brim maintains his ambitions for the season are modest. But the Italia brand does have a reputation for success under ORC, so no one should be surprised to see  Rima98  competing for class honors at the Annual Regatta. At the Alexela 2021 ORC World Championship in Tallinn, Estonia, last August, Italia 11.98 yachts finished second, sixth and ninth in the 62-boat Class C fleet.

Racing in the 168th Annual Regatta begins on Friday, June 10, with a race around Conanicut Island starting. Two days of buoy or navigator-course racing will follow on June 11 and 12.

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The Holy Grail, the Fountain of Youth, the perfectly equitable rating formula for racing sailboats. Three things not yet discovered. But that didn’t, and won’t likely ever, stop Indiana Jones, Juan Ponce de León, and sailors around the world—respectively—from trying.

In 2020, the New York Yacht Club turned to ORC to handicap its performance racing fleet. This summer will mark the Club’s third season with the rule, which is administered by the Offshore Racing Congress. The ORC Rule is managed in the United States by the Offshore Office of US Sailing. The registration numbers for the ORC fleet for the upcoming 168th edition of the New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta speak to the rule’s growing acceptance in the United States. With two weeks remaining until the first start of North America’s oldest annual regatta on Friday, June 10, the ORC fleet stands at 40 boats, ranging in length from 33 to 74 feet.

What is ORC? What changes are in store for 2022? 

“The first Annual Regatta in 1846 utilized an early handicap formula to score the boats and so has every non-wartime edition since,” says Peter Cummiskey, the event chair for the regatta. “It’s never easy to get sailors to embrace a new rating rule, so we’re very pleased to see how many boats are lining up to compete under ORC. We anticipate some great racing.” The New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta was first sailed on the Hudson River on July 16 and 18, 1846. A similar competition the previous year was called a Trial of Speed. With a few exceptions for world wars and other global crises, the event has been held every year since. For the majority of its existence, the Annual Regatta was raced on waters close to New York City. Since 1988, however, the event has been sailed out of the Harbour Court clubhouse in Newport, R.I., and has settled into the current three-day format, which includes a race around Conanicut Island on Friday, two days of buoy or navigator-course racing on Saturday and Sunday and nightly social activities on the grounds of the historic Harbour Court mansion. The 168th Annual Regatta is sponsored by Hammetts Hotel, Safe Harbor Marinas and Helly Hansen. The return of the Maxi 72 class to the Annual Regatta for the first time since 2016 will add a shot of speed and glamour to the regatta. Three of the 72-foot ocean thoroughbreds will compete in this year’s Annual Regatta. Hap Fauth’s Bella Mente program has been mainstay on the maxi yacht circuit for well over a decade and has recorded plenty of significant victories. But at Les Voiles de St. Barths in April, it was Jim Swartz’s Vesper (above) that had the edge in a two-boat battle, winning four of five races. George Sakellaris’ Proteus will join that duo for the Annual Regatta. “It’s incredibly exciting,” says Swartz. “Match racing Bella Mente in big seas at St. Barths was as fun as it gets. Adding a third player will take it to the next level.”

In the other classes, the speeds may be lower, but the fleets will be bigger, and the competition equally as intense. Among the newcomers to ORC this year is John Brim, who will hit the line with his Italia 11.98 Rima98, which he acquired earlier this spring. Brim is no stranger to handicap racing, having owned a 48-footer, 60-footer and a 55-footer, each of which he raced under the IMS and IRC rules more than a decade ago. Of late, he’s focused on one-design racing—on standard windward-leeward courses—in the J/70 and IC37 classes. Last summer, during the New York Yacht Club’s Annual Cruise, he realized maybe he was missing something. “I remembered the fun of going point-to-point,” says Brim. “I realized that has been a missing dimension because I’d been sailing the last eight years in J/70s and a couple of years the IC37s. I said, ‘This is fun.’ It was fun to also compute who won at the end of the day using the ORC handicaps. It was something different after many, many years of one-design sailing.”

Brim is also excited that the boat (a sister ship is at left) will allow him to sail with a largely amateur crew. “It’s not a full-on race boat,” he said. “I’m going to back to where I used to be and I’m looking forward to it.” Brim maintains his ambitions for the season are modest. But the Italia brand does have a reputation for success under ORC, so no one should be surprised to see Rima98 competing for class honors at the Annual Regatta. At the Alexela 2021 ORC World Championship in Tallinn, Estonia, last August, Italia 11.98 yachts finished second, sixth and ninth in the 62-boat Class C fleet.

Racing in the 168th Annual Regatta begins on Friday, June 10, with a race around Conanicut Island starting. Two days of buoy or navigator-course racing will follow on June 11 and 12.

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166th Annual Regatta - New York Yacht Club

• Friday, June 11, 2021 10:00 AM 10:00 Sunday, June 13, 2021 9:00 PM 21:00
• New York Yacht Club Halidon Avenue Newport, RI, 02840 United States (map)
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North America's oldest annual regatta will feature three great days of racing including the separately scored Around-the-Island Race on Friday, June 11, two awards parties and one fabulous regatta dinner on Saturday night. Competition will take place in ORC, PHRF and one-design classes, as well as for classic yachts and multihulls. The New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta was first run on July 17, 1845, on the Hudson River. Nine yachts started the 40-mile race with the 45-ton Cygnet winning with an elapsed time of 5 hour and 26 minutes. The race was run in or near New York City until 1988 when the purchase of Harbour Court in Newport, R.I., gave the Club a waterfront clubhouse from which to run all its regattas. The current format, featuring a round-the-island race on Friday and two days of buoy or navigator-course racing has been in place for more than a decade. Of special note this year is the inclusion of the Swan American Regatta.

For more information, visit: nyyc.org/167th-annual-regatta

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New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Atlantic Yacht Club: A Brief History

April 12, 2021 by Judith Berdy 1 Comment

The Atlantic Yacht Club’s facilities have moved several times over its history: the first facility was located at the foot of Court Street on Gowanus Bay in Gowanus, Brooklyn; it subsequently moved to a site at the foot of 55th Street in the neighborhood that subsequently became known as Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

In 1898 the club moved to its most famous club-house, located in Seagate. Seagate is located on the western end of Coney Island, and the club facilities were located on the northern, inland, side of Coney Island facing Gravesend Bay.

The Atlantic Yacht Club was organized in 1866 by a breakaway group from the earlier Brooklyn Yacht Club. Within five years its membership roll eclipsed those of the Brooklyn Yacht Club and the club developed a reputation as an active Corinthian sailing organization that attracted many of Long Island’s most prominent citizens and soon drew in members from throughout the region, including prominent sailors.

The Club rapidly developed into one of the most active yacht clubs in New York, hosting regular regattas and competing against the leading yacht clubs in the region. The Club’s annual Atlantic Race Week and Lipton Cup Regatta regularly drew sailors from around the world to compete in multiple classes. The club was also a driving force behind the formation of the United States Power Squadrons in 1914.

The club’s original clubhouse was a barge that was moored at the foot of Court Street at the end of Gowanus Creek, facing Gowanus Bay. Gowanus Creek, and the Erie Basin in Red Hook, Brooklyn served for several decades as a center of the New York sailing and yachting community, and several important boat yards were located in the area. As time passed, however, increasing industrialization in the area led many to relocate to other sites around New York Harbor and, indeed, locations in Long Island Sound. In the early 1880s, the club acquired a waterfront farm property on 55th Street in Yellow Hook, Brooklyn.

The neighborhood subsequently assumed the name of Bay Ridge, a name suggested by club-member, former Commodore and leading Brooklyn florist James Weir. The converted clubhouse was soon replaced by a larger facility constructed at the end of the club’s new pier at the end of 55th Street. A marina and anchorage were established at the same site at that time.

A new clubhouse at Seagate was designed by Frank Tallman Cornell and built in 1898 on Poplar Avenue overlooking Gravesend Bay (the site of the old clubhouse becoming the main yard of the Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company). The move to the new clubhouse was driven in large part by Commodore George Jay Gould I, the prominent financier and a son of Jay Gould. The club attracted New York socialites and aristocrats, including prominent members of the Auchincloss, Dodge, Elsworth, Fish, Gould, Hoagland, Iselin, Vermilye and Voorhees families, among many others. Sir Thomas Lipton, J.P. Morgan and the Earl of Dunraven (the British challenger for the America’s Cup, with his yacht Valkyrie ) were among the club’s members.

Initially intended as a snub directed at the New York Yacht Club’s largely steam-powered yachting fleet, at Lipton’s recommendation the regatta was encharged to the New York Yacht Club. In due course, the regatta was won by the yacht Atlantic , sponsored by the New York Yacht Club, and skippered by Charlie Barr. Barr, a three-time winner of the America’s Cup, was one of the leading sailors of his day.

The Atlantic sailed to victory in record time, establishing trans-Atlantic mono-hull records that stood for 100 years. The AYC’s entry, the yacht Thistle , a schooner built in 1901 by New York’s Townsend & Dourney and owned and skippered by Robert E Tod, finished 10th. Tod, a New York investment banker, was the only owner-skipper in the regatta.

The Atlantic Yacht Club’s Seagate clubhouse was destroyed by fire in 1933. The club soldiered-on for a number of years thereafter, becoming inactive in the 1950s. It was revived several decades later, in the early 21st century, and today, the AYC operates off Bay Parkway, directly across Gravesend Bay from its earlier Sea Gate location, with a social facility in Brooklyn Heights.

This story is courtesy the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, founded in 1977 to recover, maintain and disseminate the record of Roosevelt Island’s heritage from colonial times to the present. Visit their website at www.rihs.us .

Photos of Atlantic Yacht Club, and the yacht Shamrock III, owned by Sir Thomas Lipton, being launched, supported on pontoons.

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March 17, 2023 at 8:02 PM

My great-great grandfather, William Van Nyse Hanson, was a ship joiner, was involved in the building of the America, and was an honorasry member of the Atlantic Yacht Club (as well as a Commodore at the Amateur Yacht Club) in the 1800s. How can I find out more information about his relationship to these organizations?

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