I’ve been somewhat ocean focused the past few years, racing and cruising. In the meantime, my brother Evan picked up a Melges 15. It’s a great new class building up on Barnegat Bay, where we grew up racing M-Scows and E-Scows. We grew up spending many days a week on the water and over the past decade it seems like we only get out every few years.
I recently got in four great days of racing the M15. It’s a class with a significant learning curve but it’s also relatively insensitive to weight and fitness level- a good thing because there are some muscles I haven’t exercised in a long time racing keel boats. We’ve done a few relatively casual sails, a pair of race Saturdays out of Lavalette, and a Friday regatta out of Bay Head Yacht Club.
It’s been great fun just launching a boat that weighs 200 lbs from the beach, hopping in, and having fun working our way up the learning curve, sometimes crossing tacks with the fleet experts and sometimes falling well behind. Ultimately, being one of the heaviest crews in the fleet (combined weight probably around 370) would count against us but we’re not yet at the point where that’s what’s limiting us. Also, a wide range of weights and ages seem to stay competitive in a wide range of conditions so it seems like a great family boat in spite of also giving great rides downwind when the breeze kicks up above 10-12.
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