What a great way to kick off spring by dusting off the camera after 7 weeks without a single photo and heading out to the newly repaired public way at Parker Lane.  The Marblehead Tech Dinghy Association is one of the bright spots of this COVID winter. With frostbite sailing sidelined due to restrictions on sailing and with these MIT one-design racers available, a new group of boats could be seen racing within Marblehead harbor.

The Tech Dinghy was designed by a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1935. In November 2020, Jay Watt created the Marblehead Tech Dinghy Association which sails out of the Boston Yacht Club. I had seen a few photos of the small boats racing in front of Abbot Hall and knew I wanted to get out and see about getting my own shots.

With today’s 58 degree weather and bright blue skies on the second day of spring, I felt giddy heading out with camera gear in the trunk to find a vantage point from which to shoot. I crossed the causeway and headed to Foster Street but the angles were all wrong for the shots I had envisioned, I continued onto Parker Lane and was thrilled to see that the end of the public way had been repaired with a new wooden ladder in place to descend to the small beach area below.

Once set up, I just had to wait for the small boats to race towards Jimmy Lanes Cove which put them in front of Abbot Hall from my perspective. This was my favorite shot of the day with eight of the boats racing across the calm water with their simple white sails reflecting the bright spring sun at 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

I believe that races will continue to take place from 12-2pm on Sundays and can be viewed from Crocker Park as well.