Greenport Cup Race gets underway

Winners of two local sailing prizes, the Brooklyn Cup and the Greenport Cup, are defending their titles today in the 2010 edition of the Greenport Ocean Race, a 90-mile round-trip sail between Greenport Harbor and Block Island.
Originally called the Brooklyn Ocean Challenge, the race was revived in 2008 after a lull of nearly 30 years, and is sponsored by the Chinese Yacht Club of Greenport, Greenport Village and the Old Cove Yacht Club of New Suffolk.
The race began at 1 p.m. Friday.
Michael LaChance of Noank, Conn., is again the skipper of Dark ‘n Stormy, a J-105, to defend the Brooklyn Cup, which he won in 2008 and 2009. The Brooklyn Cup found its way from that New York City borough to the North Fork in the early 1950s, and goes to the boat with the best corrected time under Performance Handicap Racing Fleet committee rules.
Brendan Brownyard of Newport, R.I., is sailing his Swan 42, Barleycorn, looking to retake the Greenport Cup, which he’s won two years running. The Greenport Cup goes to the first boat to cross the finish line back in Greenport Harbor.
A third award, the Shelter Island Team Trophy, goes to the three boats from recognized clubs that have the best combined corrected time.
About 25 boats are expected to compete Friday. The race started about 1 p.m. for cruising sailboats — those designed for day trips closer to shore — and at 3 p.m. for speedier racing boats.
The Greenport Ocean Race is open to sailboats that are at least 21 feet long and have a PHRF rating of at least 200. Most boats carry a crew of about five.
How long does it take to sail the course?
“It all depends on Mother Nature,” organizer Peter Rowsom of Greenport said. “She’s given us a good ride for a couple of years.”
In 2008, the best time — eight hours, 54 minutes, 29 seconds — was posted by Mr. Brownyard’s Barleycorn. But his adjusted time came to over 10.5 hours, giving the Brooklyn Cup to Mr. LaChance’s Dark ‘n Stormy, which posted a time of 10:07:49.
In 2009, Mr. Brownyard won the Greenport Cup again with a time of 9.9 hours. But with a corrected time of 11.68 hours, he narrowly lost the Brooklyn Cup to Mr. LaChance whose adjusted time was 11.5 hours.
The original Brooklyn Ocean Challenge began in 1904 at the Brooklyn Yacht Club. In 1905, then-commodore William Randolph Hearst contributed the cup as the prize, proposing that the first yacht club to win three successive races should keep the cup permanently. Longtime East Hampton resident Stuyvesant Wainwright, who passed away only recently, won the race for his club in 1920, 1922, 1923 and 1924. But Mr. Wainwright decided the cup should remain with the Brooklyn Yacht Club and that winners should receive a replica.
The annual races continued until 1937, followed by a 17-year hiatus, and the cup was erroneously reported to have been destroyed in 1952 in a fire at the American Yacht Club in Rye, N.Y.
In fact, the cup was in the possession of James Heatherton of Shelter Island, the Brooklyn Yacht Club’s sole surviving member. He presented it to the Chinese Yacht Club in Greenport, which revived the Brooklyn Ocean Challenge in 1954 and continued it until 1979.
According to Andrew Rowsom, racing resumed in 2008 at the suggestion of sailor Jim Ryan, who easily won support from other local sailors and the Village of Greenport.
The village saw the race as a way to help extend the summer season and bring business to Mitchell Park Marina, Mayor David Nyce said at the time.
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