AYC Excellence at The Transatlantic 2019
Once again summer at American Yacht Club features beautiful weather, stunning views, exciting events and, of course, outstanding sailing accomplishments being added to AYC’s prestigious history thanks to excellence in The Transatlantic Race 2019.

Hiro Maru, with three of the nine crew from AYC, scored a sensational win in the IRC3 class and finished the race at 1731:40 UTC for an elapsed time of 17 days, 2 hours, 21 minutes and 40 seconds for a victory over Rives Potts’ venerable Carina, the grand dame of the fleet.

The Hiro Maru crew included AYC Members, former Fleet Captain James Murphy (Rye, N.Y.), Thomas Murphy (Burlington, Vt.) and Mark D’Arcy (Tiburon, Ca.), in addition to Archibald Adams (Cambridge, Ma.), Chip Adams (Madison, Ct.), Kristen Donelan (Ramsey, N.J.), Robert Langstine (Lawrenceville, Ga.), Nakajima (Stamford, Ct.) and William Wiese (Duxbury, Ma.).

Carina led the class for most of the race, but the race turned in favor of Hiro Maru when they passed the Isles of Scilly to the south, while Carina passed to the north.
“We did not go as far north as Carina following the weather,” said the 62-year-old Hiroshi Nakajima, a retired architect. “We were able to stay closer to the great circle route. When we passed the Scilly Isles we went outside, while Carina went inside. I think we enjoyed slightly better breeze than Carina, we really closed the gap at that point. Everyone’s just excited, very ecstatic.”

Carina was undone by stronger winds astern during its third Transatlantic Race this decade.

“The boats that were behind – 50, 60, 70, 80 miles behind – had a wind band carrying them at eight to nine knots for a week and it never caught up with us,” said Potts, past Commodore of New York Yacht Club. “Coming up the channel today we were going well at Portland Bill and making good progress, then hit a dead spot for three or four hours. It all depended on where you were on the course. They sailed a great race… That’s yacht racing.”

David and Peter Askew’s Wizard finished as the overall champion after posting a top 24-hour run of 492 nautical miles, and also won IRC 1 by some three hours and 40 minutes. The Askews, old-time sailors originally from Grosse Pointe, Mich., who grew up running grand-prix sailboats on the Great Lakes, won the Transatlantic Race in their first attempt.

“It was a long race, longer than I thought it would be,” said 52-year-old Peter Askew (Riderwood, Md.) from Paris, where he was enjoying a European vacation. “I think we were lucky in the middle of the race. We hooked into a low that stayed with us for four days. That gave us a big push halfway through. We covered a lot of miles those four days, almost did 500.”

Quotes via transatlanticrace.org