Fifty-three teams competed in the Newport Yacht Club’s 2026 Tuesday and Wednesday evening racing series on the southern end of Narragansett Bay. (Bill Shea, Newport) Credit: Bill Shea

Fifty-three teams raced in the Newport Yacht Club’s 2026 Tuesday and Wednesday evening series on the lower end of Narragansett Bay, the club announced.

Tuesday nights drew 23 teams across J/70, Ensign and classic S-Boat fleets. The J/70s raced two series, and the second came down to a tiebreaker, with Ryan Davis’s Hull Fliers of Portsmouth edging Jonathan Thurston’s Frostbite Bros of Jamestown.

Wednesday nights brought 30 teams in five divisions.

Class winners:

Tuesday

  • J/70 Series 1 — Matt Ward, TNT, Newport
  • J/70 Series 2 — Ryan Davis, Hull Fliers, Portsmouth
  • Ensign — Scott Mason, Gusto, Newport
  • S-Boat — Sheldon Whitehouse, Osprey, Newport

Wednesday

  • Multihull — Nick Nicholson, Raven, Jamestown
  • PHRF Spinnaker — Robert Morton and Richard Jaffe, Brigadoon, Middletown
  • PHRF Non-Spinnaker — Scott Walker and Dennis Ferreira, Surprise, Riverside/Newport
  • J/70 Non-Spinnaker Series 1 — Lynn Lynch, Water Chickens, Portsmouth
  • J/70 Non-Spinnaker Series 2 — Evan Boyd, Holy Frijoles, Newport

Theresa Colantuono of Portsmouth finished third in both Tuesday J/70 series aboard In the Air Tonight. Walker and Ferreira’s Surprise placed in two classes, second in the S-Boats on Tuesday and first in PHRF Non-Spinnaker on Wednesday.

Sailors interested in the 2027 season can register starting in April through the Sailing/Onshore section of the Newport Yacht Club website. Membership isn’t required.

Ryan Belmore is the owner and publisher of What's Up Newp. He took over the publication in 2012 and has grown it into a three-time Rhode Island Monthly Best Local News Blog (2018, 2019, 2020). He was named LION Publishers Member of the Year in 2020 and received the Dominique Award from the Arts & Cultural Society of Newport County the same year. He has been awarded grants for investigative and community journalism, and continues to coach and mentor new local news publications nationwide. Ryan...