Boothbay Region Sailing Club (BRSC) sent seven sailors to Portland’s SailMaine Saturday winning the Cape Elizabeth Gale Winds Classic. Thirteen teams of racers were greeted with 17-20 knots of north wind and an outgoing tide roiling the choppy waters.

Boothbay A Boat, crewed by Lincoln Academy’s Ella Beauregard and skippered by Boothbay Middle School’s Hamilton Barclay, started clean in the first race. Hiking hard and timing tacks to avoid the larger waves they took second to the heavier Cape Elizabeth team. The second race found the Boothbay pair out in front and not challenged again as they took first in race 2 by a large margin. Run after the B Division flight races 3 and 4 were won by even larger margins as the wind softened and Beauregard and Barclay’s combination of sharp starts, boat handling and sniffing out shifts was impressive to coaches.

Next up was the B Division. Boothbay freshman skipper Nate Rideout and senior Nate Graves found the wind down to 12 knots and no longer white capping. Rideout and Graves started in the middle of the line and posted mid fleet finishes of 6, 7, and 7. After a one and half hour postponement the B Division barely got a third race in before the time limit and wind expired.

Boothbay sent a second team with Kate Mason of Center for Teaching and Learning sailing with Henry Currier of Boothbay Middle School. Adam Sirois of Lincoln Academy sailed with a Cape Elizabeth skipper filling in for Boothbay. The blended team had a best finish of 3rd and consistent 5th to 7th places. Good for young sailors with only a few regattas under their keels.

Three races in each division were counted because of ISSA procedural rules. Boothbay 1 finished with 24 points winning their second regatta of the season in Portland. Boothbay 2 finished 7thwith 43 points.

Boothbay sailors then traveled to Rockland Sunday for the second regatta in the Pen-Bay Series. Host Rockland Community Sailing and the Apprenticeshop got racing underway in a 6 knot westerly that shifted from the west-northwest to southwest and gusted to 12 knots. Thirteen boats raced in a slightly different format than usual with a teams A, B and C boats racing at once making for different dynamics in the fleet. Eleven races were run each of about 15 minutes in length, and a short lunch break was taken on the water.

Boothbay’s Beauregard and Barclay posted four first places finishes in the first seven races looking dominant. As it became clear the combined points were close with Isleboro, the pair began an unfortunate series of four premature starts. Nonetheless, the Boothbay and Islesboro teams swapped the lead twice in the last four races with the outcome not determined until a protest was heard in the last race disqualifying the Boothbay A boat and exonerating the Isleboro B boat. The protest involved all four of Isleboro and Boothbay’s A and B boats in a port-starboard situation.

Despite being disqualified in the final race, Boothbay’s Beauregard and Barclay won the event with 37 points while Graves and Rideout had 82 points good for 7th. Isleboro’s two boats sailed well taking 3rd and 4th with 49 and 51 points and besting Boothbay by 19 points for the victory. Boothbay’s Henry Currier and Toby Clarkson split time with an Isleboro boat to finish 11th. The Pen-Bay teams have become good-natured rivals with no tears shed at the event — just lots of sunshine, smiles, and plenty of races.

On Columbus Day weekend members of the team travel to Long Island New York for the C420 Mid Atlantic Championships. Boothbay hosts the third Pen-Bay League event of the year October 15.

The BRSC team is supported by the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club and the BHYC Junior Program Foundation.