The 51st Governor's Cup race ready to set sail

They aren’t cramming for a college test, but a bunch of sportsmen will take part in a self-induced overnighter this weekend when the 51st Governor’s Cup Yacht Race kicks off Friday night.

The 68.6-mile long race is the oldest and longest overnight sailing race on the Chesapeake Bay.

“We run a lot of collegiate [sailing] events week in and week out, but this one is different. And it’s because it’s people from all walks of life and it’s a fun race and a beautiful sail hopefully for people coming from around the [Chesapeake] Bay to St. Mary’s City,” said Adam Werblow, who is the principal race officer and also the director of the waterfront and head sailing coach at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. “It’s kind of a neat balance of things where the students of the late 70s had the brainchild of the race, and now it’s a 51-year tradition.”

The race starts in the current capital of Annapolis and concludes in the state’s Colonial capital of St. Mary’s City.

The race will kick off with the departure of the Pride of Baltimore II at 2:45 p.m. Friday, followed by yachts leaving every five minutes from 3 to 5 p.m. from Annapolis.

The slower boats tend to be in the first groups, while the faster vessels usually set sail in the later time slots.

There are also three shorter races departing from Fishing Bay in Dorchester County, Solomons Island and the Potomac leg, in which sailors leave from Dahlgren, Va.

“I think it’s a cool race because it has a little bit of something for everyone,” Werblow said. “It’s got the 70 miles of the grueling distance race, it’s got parts that are during the day and parts of it are overnight. So it takes some navigational skill and decision-making of how you’re going to play against the wind and the water. It’s got a little bit of boat handling, it’s got a little bit of strategy, it’s got some tactics and it’s got that endurance level, so it’s got a lot of pieces to it which I think is neat.”

Werblow said the final 10 or so miles of the race where sailors head into the St. Mary's River is also critical as “depending on the wind direction, you might be tacking a dozen or more times just to get up the river.

Erik Wulff has been sailing the Chesapeake Bay since the 1990s and has won his division’s class a few times.

Wulff, who moved to Dallas from Washington, D.C., a few years back, said the secret to the race is “keeping your head in the game and keeping your concentration levels up. If you lose concentration, your chances of doing well diminish because you’re not focusing on where the wind shifts are, sail trim, etcetera.”

The 73-year-old, who will race Endorphin, a Farr 400 boat, added the night portion of the race is vital.

“Your style of sailing has to be a little different because you don’t have the visibility on the sail shape, etc, so you have to be in what I would say would be in a little more forgiving mode,” he said. “Driving and trimming take a lot of concentration. You can’t sustain that for multiple hours on end, so those are the positions you tend to rotate.”

Depending on various conditions, boats should begin arriving at the college at first light Saturday, though Werblow said a few years back the Donnybrook helmed by Jim Muldoon, a former college trustee, finish at around midnight Friday.

The official finish line is when boats pass between the Maryland Dove and Church Point, and Werblow said Church Point and The Bluff in St. Mary’s City are good vantage points.

There will be live music, games, food trucks and a cash bar Saturday at the finish line at the college's waterfront area.

Werblow said distance racing is not as popular as it once was. He noted that in 1983, 487 boats took part in the race, while this year there are less than 100 registered as of July 26.

“It’s not the sport. It’s the type of race where you go from one point to another because a lot of it is an investment of time,” he said. “In today’s go-go-go society, people have to get their boats to Annapolis, and their vehicle to [the college], and you have to get a bunch of people to do it so there’s a lot of moving parts. I think this style of racing has really diminished in the United States.”

For more information on the Governor’s Cup Yacht Race, go to www.smcm.edu/annual-events/govcup/.