Hieronymus wins 2019 Friendship sloop races

15613  

Hieronymus wins 2019 Friendship sloop races

The photo above was taken from the dock of the Claremont Hotel. Greening Island is visible in the background. Image 1, taken 40 seconds later, shows Hieronymus tacking among the other boats. Image 2, taken 35 minutes before the start of the race, shows Hieronymus sailing out of Southwest Harbor toward Greening Island with the tip of Clark Point in the foreground.

Crew: Joe Neilson, Spencer Nighman, Mary Kate Murray, Mel Steinberg, and Greg & Marc Crossley (on starboard side).

The description that follows is from an Ellsworth American article on July 17, 2019 by Stephen Rappaport (see link below).

###

At 2 p.m., about an hour after the cruising division began its race past Sutton Island, 15 Friendship sloops lined up between Clark Point and Greening Island for a race that would carry the fleet out into Great Harbor, to Spurling Rock off the corner of Great Cranberry Island, then to Bear Island off Northeast Harbor, the can buoy at the entrance to Somes Sound and back to a finish where the race began.

A light sea breeze picked up as the race progressed then died with the fleet packed together off Bear Island, race committee chairman Scott Martin said Monday morning.

As the tide turned, the breeze picked up giving the fleet a good race to the finish.

About two hours after the start, first across the finish line was a local boat, Albert Neilson’s Hieronymous, built by Ralph Stanley in 1962 and still homeported in Southwest Harbor. Close behind was another local boat, Alice E, believed to have been launched in 1899 and sailed daily by Downeast Friendship Sloop Charters in Southwest Harbor. The Woods Hole, Mass.-based Hegira, launched in 1980, finished third.

According to Martin, who raced on his own Eden, Mount Desert Island is home to the largest fleet of Friendship sloops — about a half-dozen — anywhere.

“We’re blessed,” he said Monday.

Martin hopes to start a regular series of Wednesday afternoon races for Friendship sloops after the upcoming Rockland rendezvous.

“It will be very informal,” he said. “No handicaps.”

Southwest Harbor

ME

USA

July 13, 2019