St. Petersburg will open its shores to the Helly Hansen National Offshore One Design (NOOD) Regatta on Friday as the 31st edition of the competition gets underway in Florida.
Not to be confused with its Russian namesake, those taking part can look forward to considerably warmer temperatures on the east coast of the United States, with the 2019 event set to unveil its winner on Sunday.
John Schellenbach is a NOOD competitor from Chicago who will man a Beneteau 345 alongside 20 others from the Windy City in this weekend’s event. He looked forward to some warmer conditions further south, despite never having raced in this boat before: “I’ll be honest. We’re coming down for the warmth. I don’t know anything about the boat, and in fact, I’ve never raced PHRF before.”
Photo by Capital Gazette
