Fred Scopinich Wins SS Class Association's Smith Point Races To Kick Off the Season

For decades, Fred Scopinich was more likely to repair and restore SS Class boats than to actually sail them. But with retirement on the horizon at 68, Scopinich figured he should maybe take up a hobby and start to get back on the water.

Scopinich, who along with his family has owned and operated Hampton Shipyards in East Quogue for well over half a century, won the Smith Point Races, the kickoff to the season for the SS Class Association. Scopinich skippered his SS 102 Tradewinds boat to victory with his crew of Michael Boone, who is originally from Westhampton, but lives full-time now in Maryland.

The SS Class is wooden, gaff rigged sailboats that are said to be specific to this region of Long Island, from Moriches and points east.

“I haven’t sailed in SSs in 20 to 30 years, but I restored one for myself and just finished it last fall,” Scopinich said. “We put everything together. Michael Boone was really good crew. We never sailed together before. We’d sailed against each other, but never together. But it was very, very good racing. Every one of those sailors, and there were quite a bit with seven boats, every one of them are good sailors. We were pretty fortunate to pull that off.”

Scopinich and Boone won the regatta by placing second and first in the day’s two races that featured ideal conditions with winds out of the southeast at 5 to 10 knots. Robert Dudley and Jim Ewing in SS 116 Fey placed second with 3.5 points. Canute Dalmasse in SS 153 Perseide, and David Phillips and Bob Hadden in SS 108 Tern tied for third place with four points, but since Dalmasse had the highest placement (third), he officially takes third with Phillips and Hadden taking fourth. There was another tie for fifth place between Luke and Brent Camery and Deb and Brian Dalmasse, but the Camerys were awarded fifth place with their highest placement being second. Mike Nelson and Ian Connett in SS 96 Fiji finished seventh with six points. John Zambriski, Helen Horton and Bob De Young all served on the race committee with Henry and Paul Haeflinger serving as patrol boats.

The Smith Point Races originally got its name due to the fact that the race would end under the Smith Point Bridge in Shirley. The course was changed more than 20 years ago due to the high volume of boat traffic and different tide formations in that area. The boats now follow a unique course setup that could be likened to a sports car rally, having to navigate through shallow waters and sometimes tricky sandbars. The rules of more common sailing are modified so that crews can exit their boat and enter the water in case they are grounded by a sandbar.

In recent years, the races have both started and finished at the Westhampton Yacht Squadron and headed in and out of the shoreline at points west toward Eastport. This year included a “different twist,” as secretary of the SS Class Association Ian Connett put it, with the races starting and ending at Shinnecock Yacht Club in Quogue and heading east toward Tiana Bay in Hampton Bays. The boats headed east out of Penniman Creek toward a marker near Pine Neck Point before finishing in Tiana Bay, with the second race following a similar track heading back to the club.

“The class was looking to try something new, so it was a fun thing for the class to basically switch up the format,” Connett explained. “It was a total success and a lot of fun.”

As previously mentioned, the Smith Point Races are the kickoff to the season for the SS Class Association, but it is not associated and does not factor into the standings for the fabled three-handled mug. The first race toward the mug, the Atwater Trophy Races, is Saturday, July 29, followed by the Horton Trophy Races on August 19, and then finally the Dudley Trophy Races on September 2. The boat with the least amount of points after all races will claim the three-handled mug, and after winning the Smith Point Races this past weekend, Scopinich is ready to put his name into the hat for it.

Connett says it’s wonderful to have Scopinich on the water after he and his family helped repair and restore so many of the SS Class boats that are on the water today.

“It is such a treasure to have them around locally,” he said. “We are all indebted to them, and Fred sailed really well on Saturday and I was so happy that he won the Smith Point races this year.”