NOOD Regatta Headed to Larchmont Today

The NOOD Regatta, a series of nine events held in different areas of the country and sponsored by Sailing World Magazine, will be held Saturday and Sunday at the Larchmont Yacht Club.

The Larchmont NOOD (the acronym stands for National Offshore One-design) will also serve as a championship event for the Beneteau 36.7 Northeast Class Championship, the Express 37 East Coast Championship and the J/109 East Coast Championship and J/109 East Coast Regatta Series Qualifier.

Tom Boyle, an Irvington resident, will be competing in the J/122 class for the third straight year.

"It's a very well-run regatta that people look forward to," Boyle said. "It's the first regatta following Labor Day in Long Island Sound. Usually it's a good breeze and a good turnout and a good warmup for the later regattas that come along later in the fall."

Rick Lyall, a resident of Wilton, Conn., won the 2009 event aboard his J109 Class boat Storm.

"We can expect first-class race management," Lyall said. "(Charles "Butch" Ulmer) is a very capable PRO and top-notch in running and managing fleets. The questions will be the conditions — hopefully it will be raceable. There's a lot of classes and the social events are a lot of fun."

As last year's winner, Lyall also qualified for the Caribbean NOOD. "It's a tremendous incentive to do well and win the overall regatta and compete against the teams from the other 8 NOODs in the Caribbean," Lyall said. "That is certainly something any boat would love to do."

Rob Raczkowski, the skipper of Mischief, will be competing for the Northeast Class Championship against nine other boats in the Beneteau 36.7 Class. This event will be the beginning of the fall part of his season, which continues through the North American Championships next month in Annapolis, Md.

"Larchmont Yacht Club puts on a really great program so it's a big event," Raczkowski said. "It has great participation — not only the competitors that we usually see but some new guys that come out to race — that makes it fun and adds to the competition. It's exciting and it's well-attended so the crew likes it."

But the most important factor for this weekend, like all regattas, is the wind.

"It all depends on the breeze," Raczkowski said. "Long Island Sound can be really tricky in light air, or there could be the breeze we've gotten the last couple of days and it blows like crazy. Long Island Sound racing is challenging that way."