The History of Nantucket Race Week
It was the summer of 2004…The Opera House Cup was in its 31st year and the Nantucket Yacht Club was hosting a two-day regatta for the 12-Metre Class. Nic Judson, the Executive Director of Nantucket Community Sailing was sailing with NYC Vice Commodore Peter Gevalt on a Saturday afternoon when the two of them had a brainstorm: We already have these two events, let’s stage a Race Week as a fundraiser for NCS!
No barnacles grew on Nic – he saw an opportunity and jumped on it. Within a week or so, he and the Commodore decided to cobble a couple of extra races for the local one-design fleets around the 12-Metre and Opera House Cup and wedge it into the Club’s August calendar. We’ll call it Nantucket Race Week.
With no time or budget to secure proper trophies, Nic ordered up some hats, had them embroidered with “First Place”, “Second Place”, etc., bought some tchotchkes from a local gift shop, and handed them out to the podium finishers in the club races.
And so Nantucket Race Week was born.
That autumn, Commodore Gevalt assembled a team of sailors to formalize a structure and be ready to launch in August 2005. The group included Bobby Constable, Alan Worden, Geoff Verney, Norwood Davis, the Commodore of the newly-born Great Harbor Yacht Club (GHYC), with NCS’s Nic Judson and Diana Brown. They huddled up over the waning months and into the winter.
This was the plan: Build the week around the assets already in place. Begin the week with the youth events and races for the local sailors. As the week progresses the events, attract competitors and big boats from around New England.
The 12-Metre and Opera House events already had a strong regional reputation. The Nantucket Regatta – a PHRF event that was held irregularly, could be folded in, and then a series of mini-regattas-within-a-regatta would be bolted onto the front end of the week…More one-design racing. A ‘pro-am’. A women’s regatta. Youth events. Even model-boat racing.
Norwood invited his friend Gary Jobson – America’s leading advocate for the sport – to provide industry muscle. Gary reached into his rolodex and started making calls.
It was a busy winter pulling the pieces together. The organizers managed to secure a title sponsor. The two yacht clubs pooled their resources, rallied a squadron of volunteers, and asked members to offer housing for visiting sailors.
Gary pressed a group of the country’s most accomplished sailors, including America’s Cup and Olympic legends, to serve as guest tacticians in what is now called the Celebrity Invitational, and many of them stuck around to sail in the Opera House Cup.
It all flowed together. And still does. The Week serves as Nantucket Community Sailing’s largest single fundraiser. There are 11 separate events during the week. In 2025, races were held for twenty different classes. More than 270 boats participated, with over 800 sailors. 220 volunteers, afloat and ashore, make it all happen.
And it serves a great cause: NCS puts a thousand young people through its programs every summer. It provides opportunities for people of all ages – from the toddlers in “Tiny Salts” to the graying sailors in the “Old Salts” to get out on the water. NCS’s mission statement sums it up like this:
Nantucket Community Sailing's mission is to engage people of all ages in the joy of sailing, offering access to all Nantucket's youth, and teaching every participant in our programs enduring life and leadership skills, with a deep respect for the marine environment.
