- 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 ...
...read more - 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
...read more - 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
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...read more - 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 ...
...read more - 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 ...
...read more - 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, ...
...read more - 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 ...
...read more - Early Start for Viper 640 – 2015 Season February 25, 2015
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.
...read more - 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 ...
...read more - 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 ...
...read more - 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 ...
...read more - Hybrid Blackout Panda Team Wins Second Sarasota Event January 13, 2015
What do you get when you combine half of Viper 205 Blackout Proposal, with Viper 222 Ghost Panda? Blackout Panda, with Peter Beardsley, Danny Pletsch, and Megan Magill Pletsch, and a win at the second stop of the Sarasota Winter Viper Circuit. The top two teams from the Western Long Island Sound season standings in 2014 combined forces to win the first North American Viper regatta of the year, sailed in a moderate, shifty northeasterly in Sarasota Bay January 10-11. “It made sense to team up since our respective co-owners couldn’t make the trip, and sailing in shorts in January is a lot better than staying at home,” Beardsley explained. Each sailor on Blackout Panda took turns on the helm every third race, making for a unique team win with three co-skippers.
Saturday saw fleet newcomers and 505 class veterans from ...
...read more - HAPPY NEW YEAR TO VIPER SAILORS AROUND THE WORLD January 9, 2015
2014 was a great year for racing a Viper 640, with major regattas in all four corners of the U.S., across Australia, and Europe. This coming year looks even more promising, as a full year of racing and Viper fun is already planned.
GULF YACHTING ASSOCIATION MAY GO VIPERING
The 30+ yacht clubs of the Gulf Yachting Association have been competing in their Capdevielle Regatta series for decades in club-owned Flying Scots. The GYA has been looking to replace the Flying Scots with a newer design that will be fast and fun to sail, and attract more people to participate in sailing on the Gulf Coast. Over the past year, Rondar Raceboats’ Paul Young and Dan Tucker have been working with the GYA in a focused effort to have the Viper 640 selected as the new GYA Capdevielle boat.
The commodores of the GYA ...
...read more - Sarasota Winter Circuit Off To A Rousing Start December 18, 2014
December 13-14, 2014 – Sarasota Sailing Squadron – Sarasota, FL
Phil and Wendy Lotz sailing with Luke Lawrence dominated followed mostly by Brad Boston. It was great to have Ethan Bixby (former North Sails St. Pete) in with the Hampton guys and they earned a solid third.
Some notable things to highlight: Stephan Michael, the new owner of #99 joined us in his first public Viper outing and Cliff Whatmore of Sarasota made his first outing in Jeffery Lee’s Viper 105. Both teams had a blast learning the ropes.
Full results: http://www.regattanetwork.com/event/9200
Photos: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarasota-Viper-640-Fleet/587973181298375?sk=photos_stream
Provided by Travis Yates:
Saturday we started at noon in 5-8kts out of the NNW and sailed one race in that before the breeze dialed up 8-10 for the next two then it was 10-15 on and off for the balance with some planning in the last race. With north-ish ...
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