2023 Commodores Cup Race

The annual Commodore’s Cup race took place on September 16th, and as races go this one was spectacular. We had a total of 11 boats spread out in four different classes (ARC, JAM, GNK and Multihull). Our Commodore, Mike Megarity, was of course present aboard Spruce Goose. Beach committee duties were handled by Jamie Remacle and Gretchen Burdett.

The course was set as a sail to a virtual mark off the Commercial Blvd. pier in Fort Lauderdale in about 140 ft. of water and back up to the starting point, for a total of 11.6 miles. We had light winds of about 7 kts which gradually increased to 10, and after some confusion caused by the race committee (me), Gunkhole was off, followed by JAM five minutes later and ARC and Multihull five minutes after that. Winds were from the southeast, so we had to tack several times in order to reach the southern mark, and it looked like staying close to shore to avoid the north current paid off. That was the tactic used by Contrails who was the overall winner of the race. By contrast the way back favored the outside and those who took advantage of this got an extra knot or two from the current. After racing for almost four hours the first four boats finished within four minutes of each other (elapsed time). Given the diversity of the fleet, this is a most unusual event. It was nice to see some new boats show up that normally do not race, such as Swansong, Rhapsody and Spruce Goose. Although the last two boats did not finish, it was still nice to see them participating and hope that they will come out more often.

The after-race party was held at JB’s on the Beach. It was organized by the social committee who as always did an excellent job. We had over 80 people attend the party including several past commodores. The Commodores’ perpetual trophy was presented to Jim Wallace as skipper of Contrails who won the race overall (best corrected time), and immediately proceeded to fill it up with ice and place a bottle of champagne in it.

Congratulations to Contrails and its crew as well as all those who participated in the race and the after race party.