2021 Sea Sprite One-Design Regatta

The Bristol Yacht Club hosted the 2021 Sea Sprite Regatta on July 24.  Race Committee Chair Joe Jablonowski and PRO Roger Carney with support from volunteer Bruce Nourie set inflatable marks for windward-leeward courses.  Two races were held with perennial hotshot Bob Catani winning both races with a total score of 1.5 points.  Second place went to BYC member Bob Rude and third place went to Sea Sprite Commodore and soon-to-be BYC member Dom Messerli.

It was a beautiful Narragansett sailing day with the first race started in light air and then building into a perfect 12 knot southwesterly.  The racing was close with the highlight being Dom Messerli’s New Hope beating Bob Rude’s Apsaras across the finish line by less than a foot after dueling throughout the downwind leg.

   

The finishers in order with their BYC affiliation marked as follows:

1 – Bob Catani – Bramasole – BYC

2 – Bob Rude – Apsaras – BYC

3 – Dom Messerli – New Hope – BYC

4 – Mark Rotsky – Oasis – BYC

5 – Ray Renaud – Fur Elise – BYC

6 – Jerry De Rham – Swallow – Unaffiliated 

7 – Andrew MacKeith – Vexatious – BYC

7 – Evan Ide – Phox – American Yacht Club

9 – Joe Picard – Destiny – Team Destiny

DNF – Bella Infante – Grayling – Herreshoff Sailing Club

After the regatta, a pizza party and awards dinner for sailors, crew, and their families was held by the beautiful fire pit on the grounds of the BYC.  Innumerable episodes from the race course were shared and lessons learned from the day were bandied about. A shout-out for organizing another great Sea Sprite Regatta goes to Bristol YC for hosting, the race officers Joe and Roger for officiating, Bruce for helping set the courses, and our own Fleet Commodore Dom and able assistant Bob Rude for organizing and coordinating.

The next big regatta for Sea Sprite sailors will be the September 11 Race Around Hog Island, always a low-key fun event.  Buy a Sea Sprite and join the fun!  As one visiting yachtsman said, “You can’t sail across Bristol Harbor without bumping into one of those beautiful little Sea Sprites!”

It should be Spring, but it isn’t. No boat to work on yet. So I dug out some old brochures from the SSA archives (an almost forgotten bin in my basement), took pictures of them, and strung them together to tell the story of the sea sprite line of boats. The picture quality is adequate (you can read most everything), and the story is fun to follow from the brochures. I also added an oral history thread from the Forum of 2007, threw in a couple of obits, and maybe a couple of pithy comments. If you have nothing else to do……..

http://www.seaspriteassociation.com/history/the-sea-sprite-sailboat-history/

Musing from long time sea sprite owner and SSA member Dick Rath:

I’ve just paid my 2021 dues and am happy to be back aboard.  I sold my last Sea Sprite 23 about 4 or 5 years ago and realized just recently how much I missed the little jewel that I fully restored and had so many delightful days sailing the waters of the Indian River Lagoon and exploring the many small island an creek that are part of the Indian River here on the middle east coast of Florida in the Vero Beach / Sebastian area. 
While my email address has not changed since I was last a member, my address has; it is now: Dick Rath                                                                                                                                                            1145 West Lakeview Drive                                                                                                                                                           Sebastian, FL  32958    

The 23 that I sold was purchased from Jim Krogen, CEO of  Kadey Krogen Yachts.  The builder of the magnificent  Kadey Krogen Trawlers amongst many other sailing and power vessels.  I knew Jim from my 35 year career as  Director of Sales for Lewmar ( as well as Barient when we purchased the company in a deal that included Barlow, the Australian winch maker. I retired from the marine industry in 2003.  The 23 that I bought from Jim attracted me because he had replaced it’s original straight mast with its jumpers with a beautiful custom built tapered mast which truly added to the boats performance going to weather. Jim, who was rarely in the states since his operation was in Costa Rico, kept a condo in North Miami and made a point of being home so he could participate in the incredible social and sailing event known as the Columbus Day Regatta on Biscayne Bay – usually attracting between 350 and 400 sailboats racing down the Bay to Elliot Key and an evening of partying, drinking, and debauchery.  Beyond that, the little Sea Sprite sat at his dock at his Condo awaiting another go at the C.D. Regatta.
I finally sold the boat to a new-to-sailing young fellow who had it trailered up to New York and was to keep in on mooring on Flushing Bay in Queens, NY.   The 23 I had prior to this one was sold to a New Englander who planned on keeping her in Fort Meyers, Florida.  He was a marine photographer who specialized in marine advertising.  His most memorable photo, for me at least, was one that Hinckley used in their first ad for their  “new” 36′ Picnic boat. It showed the boat floating in about 10″ of water off a sandy beach with the owner and his Golden Retriever standing next to the boat and the owner with hisNantucket “reds” roller up to just below his knees.  A very effective ad that showed off the Picnic boats extremely shallow draft made possible with the development of new Hamilton Jet Drive.
My other involvement with the Sea Sprite was between 1965 and 1973 when I managed yacht sales for Port Jefferson Maine on Long Island. We were dealers for the Herm Wiss 23 and later for Sailstar/Bristo’sl version of the boat.  Later in my career at Lewmar one of my salesman was thinking about buying a little sailboat for round-the-buoy racing in Gardiners Bay and I suggested a 23 would be a perfect choice for him.  A week later he visited Clarke Ryder Bristol, RI and ordered a 23 for Spring delivery.  He raced the 23 very successfully for a few years with the Shelter Island Yacht Club.
While at Port Jefferson Marine I sold a 23 to an airline pilot who raced it very successfully in the MORC fleet at the Setauket Yacht Club in Port Jefferson. The Pilots name was Holland (Dutch) Redfield who was soon to be come Pan American Airlines Chief Training Pilot and the first commercial pilot to ever fly a Boeing 747 and trained every 747 pilot at PanAM until his retirement.  He later was the owner of two more Carl Alberg designs: an Alberg-30 and then an  Alberg 37 Yawl, both built in Canada by Whitby Boat Works. He cruised both boat extensively between the Chesapeake, Maine, and Nova Scotia.
Looking forward to being allowed back onto the Sea Sprite website and perhaps being tempted to purchase one of the 23’s listed for sale by fellow member.
Dick RathTime Machines, Ltd.timemachineslimited.com