IT’S A VIBE

The Melges 15 has has something for every age, and for older sailors, its a much-needed return to big-fleet dinghy racing.

MICHAEL HANSON

I Just off our bow, an orange inflatable buoy bounces in the waves—our weather mark at the Melges 15 Midwinter Championship. The port-tack layline is not the smartest place to be, especially when there’s a wall of starboard tackers visible beneath the boom. With 65 boats converging to a single point on Florida’s Indian River, seemingly all at once, I know this approach is borderline stupidity, but we manage to tack into a miracle gap beneath a pack of fetching boats. Our rushed maneuver isn’t pretty, but this is only my second day racing the Melges 15, and my dinghy skills are feeling a little rusty. Up to this point, two days into the regatta, my teammate and I have made countless errors around the racecourse: bad starts, lousy gate…

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Sailing World (Digital) - 1 Issue, Summer 2023

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