Our Fleet
S2 7.9 Fleet 11 boat owners are members at Harbor Island Yacht Club (HIYC) and Percy Priest Yacht Club (PPYC). Right now, there are 10 boats in Nashville. In the summer, we sail with PPYC out of Hamilton Creek Marina on Percy Priest Lake on Wednesday evenings. In the winter, we sail out of Harbor Island Yacht Club on Old Hickory Lake, on Saturday afternoons.
In the spring and fall, we sail our boats in regattas at both clubs. There’s usually a mix of Performance Handicap Racing (PHRF) and one-design buoy racing. The annual Equalizer Regatta at PPYC is usually one of the largest 7.9 regattas of the year, with boats traveling from as far away as Canada to enjoy some fall sailing in Tennessee. We welcome newcomers who want to have fun racing sailboats, so let us know if you’re looking for a ride.
The Boat
Designed by G&S Naval Architecture of Chicago, IL, the first S2 7.9 was built in 1981 for S2 Yachts in Holland, MI. The design was originally marketed as the “Grand Slam”. Over the next 15 years, 545 boats were built and the many of them are still sailing today. The second-to-last boat ever made, hull #544, Scratch, lives right here in Nashville.
The S2 7.9 is 25’ 11” long with a 9’ beam. Cored with end-grain balsa wood, the boats weigh about 4,200 lbs and most have a lifting keel. A handful of boats were built with fixed keels, including Midget Ocean Racing Club (MORC) champion Little Feat, which spent a few years sailing on Old Hickory Lake before moving to Florida. For one-design racing, the lifting-keel boats carry a main, spinnaker, 155% genoa and 105% jib, handled by a crew of five. Locally, they have a PHRF rating of 168.
Annual S2 7.9 fleet events include National Offshore One-Design (NOOD) regattas, the Class Championship Regatta (CCR) and the Equalizer.
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