On August 9-14, 2015, Rives Potts, a FBYC member, and currently the Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, invited some FBYC members to crew for him on the New York Yacht Club's 159th Annual Cruise in Maine.  Each Commodore decides where he wants his Cruise to go, and Rives decided his first Cruise would start at Rockland, Maine, and sail to SW Harbor on Deer Isle, then to Pretty Marsh, and Bucks Harbor and then to a Lay Day in Belfast before returning Rockland via to Gilkey Harbor on Islesboro.  His usual race boat Carina, was still in Europe following the Transatlantic Race, so Rives persuaded a friend to let us race his Swan 56 Elysium.  We also chartered a Broward 95 motorboat as a tender so we were quite comfortable both racing and in the evening over gourmet dinners and cocktails.  The Rogers and Crumps also brought their Grand Banks Chessie. 

The crew, left to right in the picture, are Cyane Crump, Chafee Emory (first female Fleet Captain at the NYYC), Bev Crump, Bootsie Rogers, Susan Crump, Strother Scott, Rives Potts, Jim Rogers, Nancy Potts, Evie Scott, Peter McCloskey (Captain of Elysium), Caroline Garrett, Connie Garrett, Waddy Garrett and Dominick Cannavo (owner of Elysium).

We had no wind only on the first day, which was the Queens Cup.  The 5 Squadron Runs all had good winds. We raced in a small Class 3 against a Baltic 52, and two larger cruising boats, a Ron Holland 72 sailed by NYYC Vice Commodore Phil Lotz, and a Swan 82. We got 4 firsts and a second which we could discard, which means we won our Class for the week with 4 points.  On the final day, we again got first in our Class on the Astor Cup Race Day. A highlight of that day was that we passed Kittiwake, another FBYC boat, with Frances and George Sadler aboard, motoring from Belfast to Rockland.  And we just missed seeing Bill and Lydia Strickland who were said to be in Belfast the same day we were.

The Fleet Captain's job is to help organize the Cruise and pass along the Commodore's decisions.  Chafee is a very good sailor but also a native of Maine and she has been involved with a lot of the Conservation Easements placed on some beautiful Maine islands. She organized three stops for lunch at interesting islands or parks, and up to 25 yachts, including Chessie, joined in those visits.  Usually the director of the organization holding the easement gave a talk about the property to the vistors.

Racing Elysium was quite fun and easy.  There was only one winch handle on the entire boat as all winches were electric. Our fingers had to push either the 1 or the 2 button depending on the speed we wanted.  The boat was set up with 3 networks - more than necessary - but once the route had been plugged into the B&G GPS system, the screen in front of Rives showed the route, and Rives could zoom in easily so as to avoid rocks while tacking along a beautiful Maine shorelines.

It was a really fun week of sailing and we hope Rives invites us back for his second year as Commodore.  We hope he will set up some wonderful destinations and events for the 160th Annual Cruise.