The Women’s Rolex is held every other year in September in Newport Rhode Island. The event attracts all-women teams from around the world. The teams come from as far away as Australia, Japan, Korea and also attract many local and distant US teams. The teams are made up of professional sailors, working mothers and high school and college students. The event is sailed on J24’s, a twenty-four foot one design created by J-Boats. Each team is expected to either bring their own boat or to lease a local boat. Most teams come prepared with a new set of sails just for this event.

Excerpt from the web page:

This was our team’s second attempt at the Women’s Rolex. Many of us on the team practiced together at our local AHYC Wednesday night series events or on the J24 Garden State Parkway series. This is a series of regattas held at yacht clubs ranging from Richmond County, NY to Cape May, NJ. This year’s team consisted of the following members performing these positions:

The normal number of team members on a mixed gender team usually consists of five, but to meet or closely reach the all up weight of 882 lbs., an all women team can consist of six or seven members. This makes crossing under the boom in the middle a test of skill all in itself!

There is something special about this regatta. Maybe it’s the level of competition, or maybe it’s the amount of preparation, or the fact that it is a Category B event where advertising is allowed which raises the amount of media attention. The real noticeable difference is the friendships that occur during such a regatta.

We arrive the first day, boat in tow to Fort Adams State Park, Newport RI.

We immediately recognize some of the boats from the last event and say hello to friends. One other team from the NJ area led by Marie Jo Delveaux participated in this year’s Rolex. This was Marie Jo’s first Rolex as a skipper, she was a crew member on team "A Good Hair Day" in the 1997 event.

The boat preparation, registration, crew weigh in, sail and boat measurement occurs on day two.

All boats must meet the rules of the International J/24 Class Association.

Teams lucky enough to complete early put their boats in the water and practice with their coaches on board. That evening the Ida Lewis Yacht Club hosts all of the teams for an opening ceremony to welcome them and share stories from Rolex’s past.

Day three consists of sail maker seminars in the morning and practice starts in the afternoon. For some of the teams, it is their first time on a J24. Although they may be professionals or world class sailors these teams new to a J24 need time to practice proper boat handling techniques. Most of the teams have been sailing J24’s for many years and use this day for fine-tuning.

Day four, racing begins. Shore Sails holds a weather seminar for tacticians at 8am every morning. The courses are posted on the flagpole and dictate whether racing occurs inside Narragansett Bay or outside past Brenton Point. On windy days, the teams hope to sail inside since the water is calmer and more manageable, but the local sailors have an advantage of knowing the local currents and wind patterns on the inside course due to land and other obstacles making the outside course more desirable. Day four is a calm day so the races occur outside. The harbor start occurs at 8:30am with boats leaving the dock in order to make the 10am start. Although two races were started on day four neither were completed due to lack of wind. A very frustrating day for all of the teams. A dead sea turtle helped some of the teams to feel quite a bit queasy due to its ripe smell. We luckily didn’t cross paths with the turtle. We head back to port, tie up the boats and move on to the first in a series of evening events sponsored by J-Boats.

Day five, the wind has picked up considerably and the swells are large due to Hurricane "Gert" passing by the area. The flag indicates that racing will occur inside. The weather report states winds of 19-23 knots in the morning dying down to 15-20 knots in the afternoon.

We all leave the dock at 8:30am to start the trip up and under the Newport bridge to the race area. Two races are held in strong winds with cloudy skies. Team "A Good Hair Day" suffers an injury in the first race. We are hit with a puff just after tacking upwind shortly after the leeward mark rounding. The boat auto tacks, decides to tack back and the skipper puts her head in the way of the back end of the boom taking the main sheet bridle screw right through her eyebrow.

We are in the top ten in this race and quickly patch up the skipper to continue on. The injury makes the second race a little bit harder so we finish up and head in to get the skipper to the hospital for some much-needed stitches.

Day six brings the strongest winds of the regatta. The type of day where flying the spinnaker is only for those who have mastered the technique and can keep the boat from rolling. Most of the boats are in survival mode and don’t even raise their chutes for the downwind legs. Team "A Good Hair Day" starts the first race on a good note. We choose the left side of the course and actually land the pin end of the starting line with only one other competitor in close range, Vicki Sodaro from San Fransisco Yacht Club. We arrive at the first mark in third place. The hard decision in the high winds is whether to fly the chute or not. We go for it! The key to raising and getting the chute under control was to stay behind the island. Any boats that veered outside of the islands’ lee automatically lost control and rolled. So we stayed in the lee and on one jibe. We decided to take the chute down when we were in close range of the weather mark and make a controlled jibe with just the jib and main. This didn’t allow us to move up in the standings but kept us competitive in the race. The fleet divided between the boats flying spinnakers and those without. Race two, the wind picked up. The start was a little bit "hairy" and the race continued in that mode.

Day seven is the last day of racing! The winds have calmed considerably and the flag indicates that racing will occur outside. We are delayed due to lack of wind. The teams mull about with sails down for what seems like an eternity. Three unsuccessful attempts to start the fleet occur and the races are abandoned due to exceeding the time limit for getting a race started. The results of the previous day determine the winner of this 1999 Rolex.

Pat Connery, a local Newport sailor, and her team won the event.

Team "A Good Hair Day" finished 18^th.

The boats are all pulled out and put back on their trailers for their varied routes to home ports.

The awards ceremony is a black tie affair at the Rosecliff Mansion. The teams are dressed in their best dresses, bruised and banged up from the effects of day six. Their coaches, supporters and media join the festivities for a fine evening of dining, dancing and commemorating.

Team "A Good Hair Day" would like to thank all that supported their efforts through purchases of the team T-shirts made available for sale at the Blue Water Regatta.