May 18 2026

Bridge Fiasco 2026: Mischief, Zephyros, and Bella Vela Sail Off with the Spoils

  • May 18, 2026

The 2026 Bridge Fiasco, scored as a PHRF time-on-distance race on Saturday, May 16, delivered close racing across all fleets over a 27.8 nm course. In Spinnaker A, Mischief and skipper David Schwartz took the win with a corrected time of 3:37:18, while in Spinnaker B, Zephyros led the class for Timothy Grimes with a corrected time of 3:32:18. In the Cruising Class, Bella Vela and skipper Anthony Costanzo finished first with a corrected time of 4:10:05.

A notable takeaway from the results was that the Spinnaker B class posted a higher VMG on CORRECTED TIME than the A class, with B at 7.86 knots compared with 7.68 knots for A. That advantage helped make the B fleet the fastest on the water by velocity made good, even though the A fleet featured the overall winning corrected time in its class.

Among the other class standouts, Rumble finished second, just squeaking out newcomer, Inigo Montoya (Elliott 33),  in third Spinnaker A, while Artful Dodger and Blitz rounded out the top spots in Spinnaker B behind Zephyros. In the Cruising division, Relentless and Kestrel completed the podium after Bella Vela.

Full Results.

Race Reports below the photos

2026 Bridge Fiasco Spinnaker A Winner - Mischief - David Schwartz

2026 Bridge Fiasco Spinnaker A Winner – Mischief – David Schwartz

Zephyros - Spinnaker B Winner

2026 Bridge Fiasco Spinnaker B Winner – Zephyros – Tim Grimes

2026 Bridge Fiasco Cruising Class Winner - Bella Vel - Anthony Costanzo

2026 Bridge Fiasco Cruising Class Winner – Bella Vel – Anthony Costanzo

2026 Bridge Fiasco Photo Gallery

2026 Bridge Fiasco Photo Gallery

 

 

TEAM ZEPHYROS REPORT (Tim Grimes):

For Team Zephyros, we had much debate on the boat pre-start discussing whether to go to Mt. Hope first or Newport Bridge. Ultimately, I decided we should forget about the tide throughout the day and focus on pressure and direction so we headed South to take advantage of the tail end of the westerly. The 24 does not like upwind sailing and likes it even less in big breez and chop. From the start line, we needed only one tack to hit the center span of the Newport Bridge. 
 
The Westerly also meant the kite run to the northern tip of Jamestown would be incredibly tight, which is extremely fast in the 24 and it also meant we did not need many gybes to stay in close to Jamestown and avoid the outgoing tide. We were again rewarded by the westerly heading south to Jamestown and needed only one tack to hit center span as well. Two bridges down and only two tacks needed is hard to beat.
 
By 11:30 to noon when we crossed our second bridge, the southerly had fully established. We do not have wind instruments on board, but I estimate we were regularly seeing 17 knots and over 20 in the gusts. 
 
We were dramatically under-weight for this race, so the uphills were painful, but the downhills were epic.  We ran down the West Passage with a runner and decided to switch to our reacher across the top of Jamestown where we had a bit of upwind work to get over towards Portsmouth. Once the reacher popped, we saw no lower than 10 knots of boat speed over ground, and with the adverse current we estimate our top speed to have been north of 17 knots through the water. We only had one bad broach, which corrected itself pretty quickly and we made it under the Mt. Hope Bridge in short order.
 
Once we turned back towards the finish line, it was a true hate mission. The tide had swapped and we were beating in breeze north of 20 knots with no way to further depower the boat. That means the main was ragging almost the whole time and we were driving entirely on the jib. Our goal was to keep the boat speed over ground above 5 knots, but tacking took its toll and it was difficult to get back up to speed. By the time we finished we had fully earned our post-race beers and very, very soggy sandwiches.
 
Great crew work and a great day all around. Perfect Fiasco.
 

ARTFUL DODGER (Mike Powers):

 

From the deck of Artful Dodger, a shallow draft Tartan 3500. Our selected route was: NB-MtHB-JB. Because the bay was ebbing throughout most of the race we felt that wind would be more of a factor than current. (What the tidal gods gave us in one direction they would more or less reclaim in the other.) Therefore, we elected to sail where we believed the wind would be  strongest. Looking at predictions of several models, it appeared that winds would build as the day  went on,  with  the West Passage being  the last location to fill in.

We sailed well, had a crew of five experienced sailors who know the boat, and had great sails. And other than a hiccup on  the first spinnaker set, we had no time consuming adventures.  We  had a new undersized block on the mainsheet traveler give up the ghost before the end of its first race . . .  but due to great crew work, we saw it early, and jury rigged a fix.

Two after race observations. On our beat from the Mt. Hope Bridge, we had Zephyros, the Melgas 24, go screaming across our stern while  on her run to that bridge.  With our limited view of her boat speed, and her 21 minute(+) corrected time lead over us, pretty clear we could have done no better than our second place finish: even if we had followed her to the Jamestown Bridge. And our condolences to Blitz. Our three second lead over her must hurt.   In summary, we sailed her numbers, and we liked our selected route.

MISCHIEF (David Schwartz)

Different Strokes for Different Boats

This sage saying, adopted for sailboat racing, came to mind after I read why Zephryos went their way and Mischief went ours.  And with one of these boat tipping the scales at 1700 pounds and the other 10 times heavier, both schemes make sense.

Mischief is an upwind boat that goes upwind between 6 and 6.5 knots when the true wind is anywhere between 10 and 25 knots and the wave pattern isn’t extreme.  Big breeze on a sport boat; not her cup of tea.  Advantage Mischief.  Downwind the fat lady goes between 6 and 8 knots in that wind range.  Zephryos has the big advantage here with double the speed potential.

So, for us, going to Mount Hope first made the most sense.  Against some tide getting there, but then 1 to 2 knots of fair current made the long upwind leg to Newport that much shorter.  And, as a bonus, by the time we got to Jamestown, the tide had turned and we got a kick in the butt from it to get to the finish.  Oh, and the finish was a hoot.  Rumble and Vento coming west and Mischief going east arrived next to the bouy (and I do mean “next to the bouy”) at the same time with a closing speed of 15 knots.  Great way to end a really great day for racing on the bay.

Permanent link to this article: https://twentyhundredclub.org/bridge-fiasco-2026-mischief-zephyros-and-bella-vela-sail-off-with-the-spoils/