Eight years ago, the schooner Valora broke loose in a vicious August storm and smashed against the Vineyard Haven breakwater. Valora was gone.

New races and new venues highlight the upcoming summer of competitive sailing on Martha’s Vineyard.

Capt. Kurt Peterson tuned up his guitar and sang, his right leg holding the wheel of his catboat, Tigress, steady.

For the third consecutive year, and the fourth time in eight years, Stephen Besse won the George Moffett Race.

Boats will be charging the line in two divisions of the annual George Moffett race this Saturday starting at 11:10 a.m.

A field of eight 12-metre sailboats wrapped up three days of racing Sunday with an awards ceremony at the Edgartown Yacht Club.

Visitors could be forgiven next weekend if they thought they were in 1970s Newport, not Edgartown in 2017.

The 94th annual Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta concluded Saturday after three days of challenging conditions in the waters off Edgartown.

It is inherent in the human soul to be thrilled by the sight of wind-hardend canvas, even if it is only a picture. There are tales and traditions of men who have been highly successful master mariners, yet who were born and spent boyhood and youth far, far from salt water or even lakes where boats might have been seen, but who had studied a picture from early childhood of a ship in a seaway and carrying sail.

The 12th annual Vineyard Cup may go down as the most adventurous in the history of the event, with day one of racing scrapped because of violent weather and three boats dismasted in the second and third days.