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  • Duncan Adams, Chris Brown, Liam Green, and Ryan Bernicoat Win Inaugural Viper 640 European Championship July 7, 2015
    Reported by Governor Justin Scott So there we were, having dinner in a quaint Italian town, and a regatta broke out… Riva Del Garda: The Ora, Vino Rosso, The Falmouth Four, Ted the Marsupial and the first Viper European Championships Twenty three Vipers and K6s descended on the utterly charming town of Riva Del Garda for the Euro Cup hosted by the Italian yacht club, Fraglia Vela Riva between June 22 and 26. This event without a shadow of doubt enters the bucket list of international Viper events that every Viper owner should try and do at least once in their lifetime. The sailing is “magnificent.”  It is sailing that simply does not exist anywhere else in the world. Typically the lake is calm in the morning but, by midday, the high plains to the north of Garda have heated up and convection ...
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  • Kevin Taugher and HOT MESS win Viper 640s at Long Beach Race Week July 3, 2015
    As reported by Brandon Folkman From June 28 to the 30th, I had the privilege of racing in the always competitive Viper 640 fleet at the largest regatta on the West Coast, Long Beach Race Week.  As always the event, co-hosted by Long Beach Yacht Club and Alamitos Bay Yacht Club, delivered.  With 14 Vipers, great breeze and, of course the always enjoyable Mount Gay Rum after-parties, the weekend was a blast. For me the event basically started the weekend before, when my dad, Mark Folkman, and I raced our Viper #130 in a King Harbor Yacht Club Regatta from King Harbor in Redondo Beach, CA down to Cabrillo Beach YC in San Pedro.  We sailed double handed in PHRF, hiking for 5 miles upwind in 12-15 knots of breeze to Palos Verdes Point with all of the old heavy PHRF boats rolling ...
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  • Tom Loutrel Is Viper 640 Atlantic Coast Champion June 30, 2015
    Tom Loutrel (Charleston, SC), sailing with John Bowden and Carson Turowski, won the 2015 Viper 640 Atlantic Coast Championship over the weekend of June 27-28. Sailing their Viper CHOPPY SEAS, Loutrel and crew were able to beat by a single point Danny Pletsch (Greenwich, CT) sailing BLACKOUT PROPOSAL with Megan Pletsch and Nick and Meredith Ewenson aboard. Both boats won two of the five races sailed with neither having scores lower that fourth. In third place sailing CELERITAS, was Malcolm Gefter (Palm Beach, FL), a mere three points off the pace. Sailing with Malcolm were Jeremy Wilmot and Jonny Goldsberry. In his words said with a grin on his face, Malcolm commented, “Old farts like me require great studs like Wilmot and Goldsberry to be competitive. I just turn the boat when they say to!” Ah, youth! Results Event Website including photo gallery This ...
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  • Danny Pletsch and Cardwell Potts win 2015 Viper 640 New England Championship June 17, 2015
    Noroton Yacht Club (Darien, CT) was the host to the 2015 Viper 640 New England Championship with racing scheduled for June 13-14. Sixteen Vipers were in attendance and sailed four challenging races on Saturday. Leading the pack after the first day was BLACKOUT PROPOSAL being sailed by LYC’s Danny Pletsch, Cardwell Potts, and Clay Bischoff. Their Day 1 line score was an impressive 3-1-1-1 for five points. Following in second were Peter and Rachel Beardsley in GHOST PANDA with local Noroton sailor Luke Raymond helming. Their Saturday performance was 1-4-2-2 for nine points. In third was WILD HOGS, Peter Bauer’s Viper being sailed this season by Buttons Padin. This weekend Andy Kaplan was at the helm with Ryan Zupon in the bow. HOGS had a 2-2-5-3 Saturday for 12 point. It was not lost on these three crews that all were ...
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  • Viper 640 Atlantic Coast Championship May 2, 2015
    This year’s ACCs will be sailed in Newport, RI, on June 27-28 — Registration Friday, June 26 — as part of Bacardi Newport Sailing Week 2015 sponsored by EFG. Regatta information   Registration  
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  • Jason Carroll wins second Charleston Race Week April 21, 2015
    Jason Carroll, sailing with fellow Larchmont Yacht Club members John Baxter and Chad Corning, captured his second Viper 640 Charleston Race Week victory. With 15 Vipers sailing eight races over three days from Friday, April 17 – Sunday, April 19, it was Carroll’s regatta as soon as the second heat was in the books. Winning three races accompanied by two second place finishes, a third and a fifth, Carroll’s Team Argo was able to sit-out Sunday’s final race and watch Viper newcomer Zeke Horowitz and Tyler Moore battle it out for second. Results Read More
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  • Brad Boston, Lee Shuckerow and Nick Loundsbury Win EFG Viper 640 Pan American Championship March 11, 2015
    Viper veterans Brad Boston and Lee Shuckerow, joined by new teammate Nick Loundsbury, won a hard-fought Bacardi Miami Sailing Week and EFG Viper 640 Pan-American Championship.  The defending North American champs avenged last year’s one point loss, though it didn’t come easy, with the overall regatta leader changing three times among three different teams in the final three races. Heading into Saturday, Boston’s Jackpot held a narrow one-point lead over the second and third place teams, led by former Finn ace and US National Team member Geoff Ewenson aboard Terminally Pretty, and British international qualifier and multi-class champion Lawrence Crispin and crew.  Former Class President Peter Beardsley’s scrappy Ghost Panda squad sat fourth, only two points off the podium.  Saturday’s first race saw a light NNW breeze that died to less than 5 knots as the race went on, with the ...
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  • I Love Scorch. Scorchy scorch scorch. March 4, 2015
    Viper 640s Miami Scorch A Blustery Event MIAMI (March 3): There are a lot of reasons to come to South Florida to race Vipers in March.  The weather is usually great.  The competition is excellent.  But it’s not all about the racing around the buoys.  There’s also the race to the restaurant, known as the midweek “Miami Scorch.”  Historically a blast reach from the mainland to Key Biscayne for a midday lunch, the event epitomizes the camaraderie in the Viper 640 Class and is an unofficial highlight of the week. The two-day EFG Winter Cup Regatta for the Viper 640 sportboat, in Florida’s Biscayne Bay on March 1-2, was sailed in (by anyone’s description) ideal conditions. Easterly winds in the low to mid teens with seven well run races.  But as TV pitchman Billy Mays used to say, “But Wait…there’s more!” On ...
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  • Viper Action To Heat Up In Miami March 2, 2015
    Things are about to get hot in the Viper 640 class, with two Miami regattas in Miami this week, culminating in the EFG Bank Viper 640 Pan-American Championship held during BACARDI Miami Sailing Week, one of the Class’s major championships. The 30+ Vipers expected in attendance mark the Class’s largest participation of the six years that Vipers have been traveling south to get out of the snow. “It’s not easy to get all of the good guys in one place,” noted past Class President Peter Beardsley. “But the draw of racing in Miami in March gets a lot of the top teams together. “ Indeed, the event will be a meeting of the hottest teams in the class along with sailors from 12 states and 6 countries. Defending Pan-American Champion Phil and Wendy Lotz went undefeated in their Viper in 2014, ...
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  • Three Podium Spots, Three Different Flags at the EFG Winter Cup March 2, 2015
    Miami is known as the gateway to Latin America.  For Viper sailors, it may also be the jumping off point for points east.  If you hailed from an island in the Atlantic Ocean, you probably did well at the 2015 EFG Winter Cup.  Bermudians Somers Kempe, Butch Agnew and Adam Barboza never won a race and were over early in the penultimate race, but scored four seconds to edge Lawrence Crispin’s team from England by two points.  Racing was extremely close, as third and fourth were only a single point out of second, with Ireland’s Anthony O’Leary beating Peter Bauer’s Wild Hogs team on a tiebreaker. Crispin won the first race of the day in an 8-12 knot easterly with plenty of oscillations.  Bauer took the second race, and when Kempe struggled to an 11th after being over early and O’Leary’s Day 1 ...
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  • Early Start for Viper 640 – 2015 Season February 25, 2015Early Start for Viper 640 - 2015 Season
    The Viper season kicks off in March with the EFG Barcardi Regatta, whilst UK sailors are still in the midst of cold weather. Miami offers warm sunshine and perfect sailing conditions for the 34 boats that have already entered! The four day International Regatta is preceded by three days of pure Viper racing. This year four sponsored UK teams are participating in Miami with boats supplied via the EFG driven sponsorship programme. In Europe, Viper sailors are all signing up for the first International Regatta,  to be held on Lake Garda in June. Already the Class has entries from Australia, USA, Canada and of course the UK. Other European entries have also expressed interest in racing at this great venue. Plans are also advanced for a UK National Championship to be held in conjunction with the K6 Class in September.
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  • Beardsley and Pletsch Win Sarasota Winter Circuit Title February 9, 2015
    Amidst snowstorms and freezing rain in the northeast U.S., 15 Viper teams made the trip south to sail in sunny conditions with green water all weekend. The Race Committee at Sarasota Sailing Squadron squeezed in 9 races in conditions that never reached more than 10 knots, with large shifts, managing the seemingly impossible as fleets at other one design regattas in Tampa and St. Petersburg a few miles north struggled to get in 3 races in similar conditions. The hybrid Blackout Panda team of Peter Beardsley, Rachel Beardsley, and Danny Pletsch improved on their January performance, winning 6 races and scoring no worse than a second to win the event by 15 points over the Amthor-Eberwine team from Hampton YC. Blackout Panda stablemates Dragon Fire finished strong with a 3-3 to leapfrog Peter Denton’s Newport team by a point for third ...
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  • Viper 640 Stands Out At Gulf Yachting Association’s Annual Meeting January 27, 2015
    As reported in the recent Snake Bytes, a contingent representing the Viper 640 Class Association and Rondar Raceboats traveled to Biloxi, MS, the weekend of January 9-11 to present the Viper to the Gulf Yachting Association (GYA). The GYA is looking to replace their Association-sanctioned one-design, the Flying Scot, with a sport boat. Each GYA club is required to own at least one of the Association boats so they can compete in the GYA’s major Capdevielle regatta series. What happens is that the clubs end-up purchasing multiple boats (some as many as six or eight) which would be a boost of 50 – 100 boats for whichever class is selected as the new boat. After a lengthy review, the GYA has limited consideration to the Viper and the VX One. Included in the weekend’s Viper team were owners Craig and Deb ...
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  • Team Locomotion Wins Arizona YC Birthday Regatta January 26, 2015
    The 55th Arizona YC Birthday Regatta and Leukemia Cup was the first event of the Viper 640 West Coast Winter Circuit, held during Martin Luther King Day Jr. weekend at Lake Pleasant, 40 miles north of Phoenix.  The event is known for its beautiful desert scenery and its usual “festival” vibe, including the annual “mini-bar” hosted after the racing on Friday by Kelly and Billie Beaver who poured enough rum drinks to make sure everyone was relaxed and happy. The event saw 13 teams, with an even mix of local and out-of-state boats in attendance.  Over the three days of racing, the winds for the start of the first race were good, but quickly lightened to provide challenging conditions for everyone involved.  In fact, each day ended with everyone getting out their paddles to make it back to the bar in ...
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