News Brangiforte wins New England Regional #1, Charles Family Steals Show

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Bill Brangiforte of Weymouth, MA outdueled New York’s Mark May to win the first New England Regional of 2009, hosted by the Barrington (RI) Yacht Club on June 6-7.

After each finishing with two firsts and two seconds on Saturday, Brangiforte and May were in match-race mode for the final three races on Sunday, as the rest of the fleet was well behind the two leaders. With Brangiforte and May shadowing each other across the course in the light air, Eric Woodman (Mass.) emerged from the pack finish 3rd for the championship.

Ken Charles (Conn), losing a tie-breaker, finished 4th with Scott Greenbaum (Mass.) finishing 5th. Bill McInnis (Mass.) took the trophy for the top sailor from Narragansett Bay, while Lee Parks earned the well-deserved Sportsmanship award. Kurt Charles was the top junior finisher.

Sunday’s final race was notable for several reasons. Most importantly it decided the championship, as the wind shifted from the West to the South-Southeast halfway up the first beat. Many of the regatta leaders, including Brangiforte and May, were pinned on the wrong side of the course (the right). May and Brangiforte were knocked so far back that the race became the throw-out for each, pushing Brangiforte ahead by two points and to the championship.

Meanwhile, on the left side of the first leg, son Kurt, mother Mary and father Ken Charles had positioned themselves to take advantage of the shift and ended up finishing 1, 2 and 3 for the race, which everyone agreed was probably a class first.

The people of the Barrington Yacht Club were, as always, great hosts and the committee, headed by Scott Walker, did a nice job dealing with some extremely variable conditions.

Full results are here:

http://www.sunfishclass.org/newengland/blog/?page_id=190
 

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