Two beautiful days of racing, July 29 and 30, and a 2017 Maine series record number of boat entries sum up the preliminaries to the 43rd annual Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club Regatta which is now in the history books. Good winds for a part of each day tested even the most experienced sailors and certainly tested the race management team when they switched direction by 90 plus degrees midrace.

In the Boothbay Harbor One Design class, Jon Dunsford, sailing Bittersweet, took top honors followed by Past Commodore Eric Hakanson sailing Charisma. Third place was captured by Richard Rush in Sarabande.

In the Cruising Class, Commodore Bob Scribner sailed his new J Boat Caliente to a victory and he was closely followed by Mark Gaffney in Sunfish, with good neighbor Tim Allen in Greyhawk third in a fleet of six.

In the fast growing J-80 division Ken Colburn's Ghost II  took top honors followed by Bill Hunt in Firebolt and Jeff Curtis in Silkie. Look for an even larger J-80 fleet in coming years. There were seven boats entered this year and it looks like as many as 10 next year.

In Racing Division 1 the Smithwicks from Portland took the flag sailing Kaos II, followed by Ryan Raber in Scapa and Ken Colburn in Apparition.

And in racing Division II, Ranger, owned by Kenneth Weg, finished first for the two days followed by Tom Hall sailing Wet Paint and old faithful Butch Minson sailing Cats Paw. This was the largest division in the 31-boat fleet with nine boats registered.

Plans are already underway for the 44th annual Regatta which will be held midsummer 2018.