WET N OT E S

In one New England harbor a growing one-design frostbite fleet faces its past and present

In one New England harbor a one-design frostbite fleet now faces its past and present.

Frostbite racing in the Northeast has been going on for ages, especially in Wickford Harbor, Rhode Island, where the Sea Dogs have romped every Sunday since the 1960s. Chuck Allen, Wickford YC’S past commodore, had been raving to me about them, so I recently texted him on a whim and asked if there was spare boat I could race with them for a day.

“Yes,” he replied. “First race is at 1, but people start showing up at noon.”

Anxious to rig, source a few pointers, and get a handle on the boat before the first race, I pull into Wickford YC’S clamshell parking lot early on a Sunday morning in January. The club is deserted, so I mosey down to the docks to inspect rows of overturned dinghies. I assume them to be Sea Dogs, and upside down, they look simple enough.

Promptly at noon, the first sailor arrives, jumps out of his BMW, and heads straight to his craft. It’s Wickford YC Commodore Gordon Fletcher, a relative newcomer to the Sea Dog fleet. I introduce myself and help him flip his boat, which is when I begin to learn no Sea Dogs are alike. Fletcher explains how his is heavily modified, with watertight tanks and cut- out transom, then points out a few shiny new Sea Dogs farther down the dock.

Allen eventually pulls into the lot and hops out of his silver Ford Ranger. It’s 30 degrees and he’s in a thin, long-sleeve shirt, sweatpants, socks and sandals: the attire of a frostbite nut job. He’s a sailmaker with North Sails, a Sea Dog “world champion,” and the energy fueling Wickford’s Sea Dog resurgence. He introduces me to a few others, including young newcomer Ross Ween.

“He came once,” Allen says as he turns over his own boat, “and now he’s totally into it.”

Allen’s Sea Dog is nothing like the sparkling new fleet-owned boat sitting inside the club awaiting its hardware. Ugly would be a compliment, but his Dog is stiff — and fast. Whether it would pass class measurement is debatable, but it doesn’t matter because there are no hardand-fast rules anyway. His also has tanks, which he explains is a “game changer” in Sea Dog sailing. Gary Breder travels interstate to frostbite in Wickford, Rhode Island. He’s a fanatic with his older-school Sea Dog. PHOTO :