Clear skies with large white clouds floating by and enough of a breeze over the water made for two great days of competitive sailing this past weekend on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula, playing host to a unique class of racing boats.
The longtime tradition of Hampton One design sailboat races on Urbanna Creek and Rappahannock River was revived this weekend, June 21-22, as 10 boats competed at Saturday and Sunday’s Urbanna Hampton One regatta. The races were hosted by longtime Hampton One sailor and former national champion Latane Montague IV. The race command station was held at his recently refurbished marina on Urbanna Creek.
The Hampton One class goes back to the early 1930s, when a Hampton Yacht Club (HYC) committee formed to select a sloop design for competitive racing on the (relatively shallow) Chesapeake Bay. It was designed in the Hampton, Virginia, area by Vincent Serio in 1934. It quickly became one of the most popular small craft racing sailboats on the Chesapeake with active fleets ranging from Norfolk to Annapolis.
The Town of Urbanna has a long history with Hampton One racing, too. As waterfront communities up and down the bay established Hampton One sailing fleets, the Urbanna Yacht Club (UYC), founded in 1939 in Urbanna, established the third Hampton One fleet on the Bay. Christchurch School, just a few miles from Urbanna on the Rappahannock River, established a fleet of its own. UYC, on Urbanna Creek and the Rappahannock River, hosted the third Hampton One Design National Championships in 1948.
UYC came to host the championships because the 1947 championship trophy was won by UYC member Lloyd Emory at the HYC races in Hampton. In a tradition that has remained to this day, the next year’s national meet is held on the previous champion’s home waters.
Urbanna last hosted the national championship in 2021 after Latane Montague IV of Urbanna won the 2020 championship in Norfolk. The championships have been held every year since 1935 (except in 1942, during World II). In the past 75 years, the national championship has been held on the Rappahannock River a half-dozen times. The UYC club moved in 1949 to Deltaville, 17 miles away, and was renamed Fishing Bay Yacht Club (FBYC). Today, FBYC is a center of educational and competitive small craft sailing on the lower Bay.
The races started in the creek on Saturday morning with all boats jockeying for position at the starting line and racing to the finish line out in the Rappahannock River. The regatta held six races in the river, three on Saturday and three on Sunday, with two distance races, one out from the creek to the river course and another into the creek from the river course on Saturday. The distance race “out” on Saturday morning was won by Charlie McCoy and Alex Jacod of Norfolk while the race back was won by Jackson Montague of Urbanna and Laura Rhodes of Hampton.
The overall champions of the six races on Saturday and Sunday were Jackson Montague and Rhodes who won all three races on Saturday and finished second, third and fifth in the three races on Sunday. Second place went to Dr. Gordy Stokes and Dr. Kerri Stokes of Norfolk, and third place, to Blake Goodwin of Yorktown.
The two-day racing event drew sailors from Alexandria, Richmond, Washington, D.C., and even Houston, Texas.
Next up for the Hampton One racing series is the Broad Bay/Wolcott Memorial Regatta in Norfolk on June 28-29, followed by the Hampton Annual One-Design Regatta Series at Hampton Yacht Club July 12-13, a return to Fishing Bay, the Ware River in Gloucester, and the national championship back at Hampton Yacht Club in August. See the full schedule here.
