The Sun Goes Down, The Boats Come Out at 56th Beach Point Overnight Race

Boats begin the race on Tuesday, heading south to the first mark.

The party doesn’t start ‘till the sun goes down, especially for Junior Big Boat Sailors.

Sailors who have attended the Larchmont Junior Race Week dance already have a taste of how awesome nautical nightlife on Long Island Sound is, but fewer take the opportunity to actually sail after dark.

15 teams of junior big boat sailors, however, did just that on Tuesday at the 56th Annual Overnight Race for the Junior Distance Sailing Championship of Long Island Sound, hosted by the Beach Point Club in Mamaroneck, NY.

“I’m looking forward to the overnight part of it,” expressed Tyler Paige, a sailor from Cedar Point Yacht Club.  “It’s a whole different world once the sun goes down.”

“The nighttime portion is when it gets serious,” explained Russell Clarida, a competitor from Pequot Yacht Club.  “After 5 or 6 hours you can lose focus, and it becomes a true test of how well you’ve trained.”

The race, which consists of an approximately 65 mile course starting at Beach Point, extending to Stratford Shoal, and ending back at Beach Point, is widely considered the zenith of the junior big boat sailing season in western Long Island Sound.

American Yacht Club's Rebecca Quirke raises the mainsail before the start on Tuesday afternoon.

“This is easily the biggest big boat event of the year,” declared Clarida.  “We’ve used the other races as practice; now this is when we get to put it all together.”

“We’ve had practice every day the last week, and have been prepping since the beginning of the summer,” Hadley Lane, a sailor from Indian Harbor Yacht Club, said Tuesday morning.

After the Tuesday afternoon start, sailors headed east with a solid Southeasterly breeze, which stayed more or less constant throughout the race allowing boats to finish relatively quickly, as they did not need to zig-zag upwind going either way.

"The race was a beam reach, with true wind angle from 90 to 115 degrees for the entire way out and back," Patrick Croke, an adult advisor on the Indian Harbor boat, recalled in an email Friday.

However, some boats did encounter storms around midnight.

"We witnessed great light shows, rain, and some wind in the 15-20 knot range as the storms passed," explained Croke.

"For some boats that were close to Long Island, where the storm was, the lightning was so bright that it looked like daytime at 1AM.” said Alexa DiIorio, a sailor from Huguenot Yacht Club.  "It was crazy."

Alexa DiIorio of Huguenot Yacht Club waves as she crosses the starting line on Tuesady.

In the end, after a long but windy night, the Larchmont Yacht Club team sailing on Morning Glory got first on corrected time for the entire race and in its division.  Pequot Yacht Club’s boat Cush and American Yacht Club’s Patriot each won in their divisions. High Noon from Noroton Yacht Club took line honors. Full results are on YachtScoring.com.

Also, check out photos from the Overnight in two Facebook albums: pre-race and team portraits. 

High-resolution team portraits are also avalable on Snapfish here so you can order prints (if you don't have an account already, you get 20 free prints just for signing up).  Remember, a nice framed team portrait makes an excellent thank-you gift for your boat's owner!