Charleston Race Week at Patriots Point Gets Underway A Day Earlier Than Usual

Distance race for ORC Sportboat North American Championships kicks off regatta

Charleston/Mt. Pleasant, SC (2026 April 16) - by Bill Wagner. Competitors and organizers alike could not have asked for a more spectacular start to Charleston Race Week at Patriots Point.

Sunny skies and strong breeze greeted the 18 boats in two classes competing as part of the ORC Sportboat North American Championships. Offshore Racing Congress officials wanted to conduct a distance race to challenge participating teams so Charleston Race Week got underway a day earlier than normal.

Blessed with a 10 to 15 knots of combined synoptic and sea breeze, principal race officer Mark DeGuire was able to set a 20-mile course consisting of beating, reaching and running legs for the larger, faster boats in ORC A. That distance was reduced to 16 miles for ORC B, which is made up of boats 30 feet or less in length.

Sailing mostly in a strong ebb current that enhanced the southeasterly breeze, both fleets finished in about 2 ½ hours — well ahead of the four-hour time limit. Skipper Chris Duhon and his team aboard Tequila Mockingbird came away victorious in Class A while Charleston Race Week veteran Mike Beasley sailed Black Sheep to first place in Class B.

“It was a very technical race in terms of the current and shifty winds,” Beasley said afterward. “There was quite a bit of oscillation in the breeze, and full credit to the PRO for sending us on a course that involved every point of the compass for sail setting.”

In ORC A, skipper Joost Olan-Sheehan steered Warrior Won to a commanding boat-for-boat lead around the racetrack, but as one of the fastest-rated boats had to give time to all but one entry in the class.

Tactician Ben Lamb made some good calls as Tequila Mockingbird overcame a bad start by steadily making up ground during the tour of Charleston Harbor. The Cape 31 crossed the finish line 1 minute and 22 seconds behind Warrior Won, but wound up winning by 12 seconds on corrected time after the ORC medium wind all-Purpose scoring model was calculated.

“I had an issue before the start that made my team have poor speed coming off the line and we were about three boat lengths behind the leaders,” Duhon said. “We were finally able to tack away and get some gaps with clear air. Our guys just kept grinding and never gave up. The team did a great job of recovering from my poor start.”

Duhon said Tequila Mockingbird made its biggest moves during the lengthy upwind and downwind legs, but the real key was keeping the boat moving and maximizing every ounce of boat speed and performance.

“We just focused on each section of the race and took it one pass at a time. Every tenth of a knot mattered and every foot of height we could get mattered,” the Key Largo, Florida resident said. “There were a lot of little shifts that we were able to take advantage of by putting ourselves in the right place at the right time.”

Warrior Won made a strong statement by leading ORC A from start to finish and placing second on corrected time. There was a bit of a gap to the next group of boats with the Cape 31 Hobbes (Ryan Ruhlman) taking third 10 minutes behind the runner-up.

“I’m happy to be where we are after the first day, but there’s a lot more racing to go and this isn’t over in any way, shape or form,” Duhon said. “Every boat in our class has a chance to win this championship.”

Black Sheep is the slowest-rated boat in ORC B and sure enough finished last among the eight entries on the course. However, Beasley and his top-notch crew sailed the boat well and won by one minute over the Farr 30 Maggie on corrected time.

Short Bus, a Henderson 30 skippered by Patrick Gavin-Brynes, is the scratch boat in the class and crossed the finish line first with an elapsed time of just under 2 hours, 18 minutes. That was not enough to save its time on handicap and three boats corrected over Short Bus. Rattle-N-Rum, a GP26 owned by Annapolis Yacht Club member Mark Shortz, placed third.

“Our plan was to keep it simple and make sure we got around the race track without any major calamities. It wasn’t by any means perfect, but the result speaks for itself,” Beasley said. “It was a good start, but it’s only one day and there are a lot of things we need to do as a crew to improve.”

Beasley is a Charleston Race Week veteran and skippered the aforementioned GP 26 to victory in three straight years here — earning the Palmetto Trophy for top performance among handicap classes in 2018. Joe Gibson serves as mainsail trimmer and tactician aboard Black Sheep, which showed superb crew work on Thursday.

“One of the big gains came on the first tight reach to the bottom mark when other boats didn’t put up spinnakers. We were able to hoist the chute and rounded the first leeward right behind the 30-footers. That really set us up well for the day,” Beasley said.

Beasley noted the J/80 was not able to get on a plane whenever the wind dipped below 10 knots while most of the other boats in the class did not have that issue. That disadvantage could become more acute as the ORC Sportboat Championships conduct windward-leeward racing for the next three days.

“A lot will depend on conditions because there are a lot of full-on planing boats in this fleet. We’re the last boat in the fleet to plane, so the wind velocity is crucial,” the longtime Annapolis resident said.

Beasley was impressed that the Delta split between the first and last place boats was just over nine minutes, saying that speaks well of the ORC rating and scoring system. For complete results, click on: https://www.yachtscoring.com/event_results_detail/50472/1