Where are local sailors racing this winter?

Once upon a time, dozens of Detroit area sailors headed to Key West’s annual January regatta for some sailing fun far away from the snow and ice. There were so many local sailors in Key West, there was a Bayview Yacht Club party held there.

But those days are over.

Yes there are still a few local people racing Key West Week. But the flavor of the Key West race has changed. It no longer attracts a lot of bigger boats. Instead there is more one-design racing in Key West.

“The complexion of the race has changed quite a bit,” said Frank Kern of Grosse Pointe Park and a Key West Week veteran. His J-120 Carinthia will race the Fort Lauderdale to Key West regatta Jan. 14–15. But he’s not going to do the race week in Key West Jan. 18 to 23.

“When I started doing Key West Week there was a 25 boat Farr 40 class and even a J-120 class,” Kern said.

“However it has gotten very expensive to haul a boat down with a 10 to 15 person crew,” Kern said. “Because of the tourist success of Key West, housing expenses have gone through the roof. It much more common today for this generation of sailors to tow down their own sailboat and use a 3 to 4 man crew.”

Doyle Sails owner Bob Declercq agreed.

“Key West is expensive,” Declercq said. “You can’t rent a house for your crew for less than a month.”

Instead local sailors are finding other races in Florida and other warm places.

Charles Bayer of Grosse Pointe Farms and Chris Saxton of Plymouth just finished the Quantum J-79 Winter Series 2 in Tampa. Bayer was sailing lil Grizzly and Saxton sailed Aisle Salmon.

“We had a side bet of a handle of rum and Chris Saxton overpowered Chuck Bayer to win,” said Todd Jones, who was part of the crew.

Saxton will also be sailing the J-145 Vortice in the Fort Lauderdale to Key West race.

Key West has become more of a one-design race. There are 33 boats entered in six mixed classes, and only four big boats entered. The other eight classes are one design classes, with the 54-boat J-70 class by far the largest in the 133-boat fleet.

“What looks really interesting is the GC32 cat class,” Kerns said. “These have foils similar to what is used in the America Cup. Foils are now being tried in many of the super yachts and we may see it migrate down to the smaller ones.”

“ORR is trying to get their arms around the performance boost and when PHRF has to start rating them it is going to get complicated,” Kern said.

All of this doesn’t mean there is no one from this area racing Key West Week. Both Saxton and Bayer will race the J-70s there, along with three boats from the western side of the state and two from Charlevoix.

Key West isn’t what it used to be, in terms of the number of local boats. But that just means local sailors are carrying our flags to even more regattas.

Are you, or do you know someone racing in warmer water this winter? Let us know and we’ll write about it.