Last weekend, “Dark ‘n Stormy” successfully defended the Brooklyn Ocean Challenge Cup. According to Mike LaChance, “It’s tough to win a 90nm ocean race two years running as many factors are outside our control so luck played some part. And we knew it would be hard to top last year’s performance. Securing the same top notch crew as last year was the key to our success. Half the BOCC crew were Dark ‘n Stormy regulars and the rest Mudheads with lots of racing commitments, but memories of last year’s race made it easy to get everyone to return. And everyone has already committed to the defending again in 2010. “

Left to Right

Peter Tilton, Eric Irwin, Dana Olivera, Carl Fast, Mike LaChance, Chatham Bordner, Patrick Murphy, Frank Murphy

“Another key to the win was the decision to hoist another spinnaker after shredding the first, though we did wait about 45 minutes for the wind to back and calm down a bit. If we played it conservatively we would not have won. We ended up carrying that smaller chute until the finish in Greenport harbor. In retrospect we should have changed kites at 1BI but we were in control until gusts in upper 20’s took out 89 sq meter class spinnaker. Even with the smaller 77 sq meter kite we still had to blow the vang a half dozen times to avoid wiping out. Wicked fun moonlight sailing at 13-15kts for sustained periods but for next year we’ll need to equip crew with ski googles as the continual spray off the bow on the J105 going so fast made it difficult to see!”

Mudheads also won the Shelter Island Team Trophy. Participating boats included Dark ‘n Stormy, Peter Rugg’s “Jaded” (who also had a great race winning the double handed division) and Mike Hennessey’s “Dragon”.