Blue Yankee favourite

Talbot Wilson previews tomorrow's Marblehead to Halifax race

The 102-year-old Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race begins this Sunday and the big boats in the 38-boat IRC Division may be in for a fast ride. Weather forecasters are predicting a light breeze for the start, but as the big boats work offshore they should encounter winds building to 18 knots+ early in the evening and then increasing up to around 30kts by midnight Sunday.
 
The boat to watch has to be the R/P66 Blue Yankee sailed by the father and son Towse Team. Blue Yankee is the newly crowned Rolex US-IRC National Champion coming off of an impressive Rolex Block Island Race Week series. Towse and company love to sail offshore in a breeze. Also on the top gun list are Tom Hill’s R/P 75 Titan 12 that will be looking for line honors and John Brim’s brand new R/P 55 Rima2 that will make an early offshore test of this race. 

Other big boats looking for a record run will be the Andrews 77 Alchemy sailed by the US Merchant Marine Academy, Jim Muldoon’s Donnybrook from Washington DC, and the Stevens 76 Goshawk out of Camden YC.
 
Joe Harris will be bringing along his Open 50 Gryphon Solo sailing with a full crew.  With beam reaching conditions, he should cant the keel to windward and fill the aft ballast tanks and surf to Halifax. He'll be matched up against the Cookson 50 Privateer, the Farr 60 Hissar and TP52s Decision and T-Squared.
 
The race will include 69 PHRF Racing boats and 20 PHRF Cruising boats. In the IRC Division some 20 boats will be ‘optionally’ dual scored under ORR.
 
The 2007 Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race is part of the US-IRC 2007 Gulf Stream Series. John Mendez, US-IRC Executive Director commented about the series saying, "Many of these yachts will also be using this event as part of their Gulf Stream Series participation...the STREAM runs on and here in the Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race we see many yachts still actively participating and realizing that there is still time to win this major trophy."