Marblehead Junior Race Week took place this week and between the weather and work, I hadn’t had a chance to shoot any images of the Optis racing off Marblehead harbor.  I had captured a ‘gaggle’ of Optis as I had called them in 2013 when I hitched a ride aboard a zodiac and, with the new freedom of a drone, I was looking forward to new images of these tiny boats racing off Marblehead Neck.

MJRW began on July 23rd (too windy for the drone), continued on the 24th and 25th (rain, winds and work) and finished up on the 26th.  Thankfully, that happened to be a Wednesdays and, even better, conditions were perfect for flying and racing with a gentle breeze and blue skies.

I took off from Chandler Hovey Park at 11am and watched the drone shrink in the blue skies while I piloted it around the boats.  I came around to compose this image of a line of optis racing in the deep blue waters with all of Marblehead visible in the background.  I shared a video of the race when I returned home and will add a copy here as well.  As luck would have it, I caught the starting cannon firing (but the drone can’t capture sound unfortunately).

I received a great comment on Twitter from Rob Day about this video: “Inside every one of these tiny boats is a tiny kid”…