It’s really not fair.
That’s what I was thinking perched on the weather rail of the Italia Yachts 14.98 Artemis while beating up Eastern Bay on a sunny, 10- to 12-knot day in sparkling flat water. As perfect sailing days go, it was a top three, easy.
I’d been invited along for the annual Annapolis to Miles River Race, a 20-plus-nautical-mile jaunt down the Chesapeake Bay, up Eastern Bay, and into the Miles River. And it really wasn’t fair, I was thinking, because most boat review sails amount to a couple of hours of somewhat perfunctory sailing, and rarely is the boat pushed for any length of time in the way an owner racing or even cruising on passage might do.
But here was Artemis and her crew, short tacking up the side of Eastern Bay, pushing her to sail as high and fast as possible, and with her 785-square-foot main on a 70-foot Axxon Composites carbon spar and No. 1 jib she was not disappointing—the B&G mast display showing between 6 and 7.5 knots of boat speed in 7 to 9 knots of true wind at apparent wind angles (AWA) of 25 to 27 degrees.
Those of us on the rail shifted high side to low side and back as the wind speed varied, and the 22,000-pound displacement 51-footer responded under us like a
