Sails Aloft for 55th Annual
Day Sailer North American Championship Regatta

by Kat Szmit
The Cape Cod Chronicle

CHATHAM ─ Many great sailboat races are steeped in tradition, and the Day Sailer North American Championship is no exception. Helping this event endure for more than five decades is the generations of families taking part.

From July 21 to 25, sailors from across the country participated in the 55th Day Sailer North American Championship, held on Pleasant Bay off the Chatham Yacht Club, a host of the event along with the Orleans Yacht Club, Pleasant Bay Community Boating, and Stage Harbor Yacht Club.

Among the competitors was Bruce Richards, who sailed with his 84-year-old father Nolan and his 6-yearold grandson Isaac Lovell, while sister Robin Richards skippered another vessel.

“It’s a fulfillment of a dream,” Bruce Richards said. “My 6-year-old grandson and I have been crewing for my father since [Isaac] was 2.”

Richards said Nolan steered the boat he’s sailed for 55 years, a Day Sailer 857 named the Hinemoa that Robin called “the cornerstone of our sailing family.”

“Both my brother and I slept on it as folks raced,” said Robin, who added that she and Bruce also learned to sail on it.

Bruce Richards said creating family memories is what makes the annual competition special.

“It’s the gathering of like-minded sailors who love the boats and like the game, and gather once a year from all corners of the country, [this year] for three perfect days on Pleasant Bay,” he said. “What a unique game that you can play into your 80s and even 90s with your grandchildren, your children, your friends.”

The Richards family was one of several in the championship. Sailing to an overall victory were Jonathan Foot and daughters Lucy and Elizabeth, who took turns crewing with their father.

According to event chairman Ted Dickson, Foot’s parents met on Pleasant Bay, as did Dickson’s.

“Jonathan’s parents met at Pleasant Bay Camp in 1956 or 1957,” said Dickson. “His mom was a swim instructor and his dad was the head sailing instructor. They got married in 1959.”

Dickson said Foot taught sailing at Pleasant Bay Camp in 1980, its last season, while Dickson was running the Chatham Yacht Club sailing program. Although the two crossed paths, they cemented their friendship at Princeton, teaching sailing together in 1982.

“We started racing together in Day Sailers in the summer of 1983,” Dickson said. “Jonathan met his wife Barbara while racing Day Sailers with me. Eventually [we] were in each other’s weddings.”

Dickson’s father’s family owned land on Pleasant Bay just west of the Narrows, adjacent to a home owned by a family that were neighbors of Dickson’s mother’s family in Minnesota. After Dickson’s grandparents retired to Chatham, Dickson’s mother met his father, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“They married in 1960,” said Dickson.

Such stories are woven throughout the championship, and what binds them is a love of sailing that is, quite simply, in the blood.

“There’s something admirable, honest and pure about it,” said Richards. “You’re out in the elements and you have to respond to them as they’re presented to you. I love that in Hebrew the word ‘wind’ translates to ‘hand of God.’ You can’t see it, but you can feel it and you try to bend to its will as best you can. And you try to do it a little better than your competitors. We just had a magical, memorable week on the Cape.”