The Star class, one of four sailboat classes raced out of the Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club, was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its annual June regatta, known as the Tomahawk. Stars are beautiful, two-person keelboats (if you check the odd hours of Olympic coverage this summer, you’ll catch ’em), and it’s a joy to see them crisscross the lake, coasting through the flat waters.
The people who sail them are also world-class partiers, so I knew it was going to be a fun weekend. What I didn’t expect was the high-caliber set of sailors to descend on our little, unpredictable New Jersey lake. Olympic gold medalist Magnus Liljedahl of Miami and Olympic sailor Peter Bromby of Bermuda were both in attendance, with Bromby claiming first place. Two Jersey stars, Rick Merrimen (an LHYC member) and John MacCausland of Medford—who finished 10th and 19th at the 104-boat Star World Championships this spring, respectively—also made strong showings over the weekend. And Jimmy Lowe flew up from the Bahamas to navigate Hopatcong’s coves.
My father-in-law, Gene Murphy, was pumped up enough about this event to return to racing after a decade or so out of the boat. He sailed the first Tomahawk at the age of 21, and didn’t want to miss this one, taking his 70-year-old body out to get pounded over two very windy (and at times, rainy) days. As the sailors were packing up yesterday afternoon, he was surveying the scene, smiling like a cheshire cat. "Put this one in the books," he said. "You’ll almost never see another regatta like this one."
But based on the comments from those who were visiting Lake H for the first time—Bromby, in his awards speech, said the LHYC family was a group like none he had seen—maybe they’ll be back. I certainly hope so. Because for a weekend, it felt as though my childhood summer home was the center of the sailing universe. Imagine that.
(To read the local coverage of the event, check out the Daily Record and Star-Ledger articles.)