Bruce Stone managed a victory in the first race and a fourth in the second race of this seven-race series, all the while hoping to not end up in a tacking duel because his rudder bearings on Arbitrage progressively froze as the day wore on and he could barely move the tiller in the afternoon, steering downwind pushing his hip against the tiller. He then faced the decision of pulling out, but had the inspiration to call Tom Coates, whose boat Masquerade was not racing. Bruce didn’t have to say anything – when Tom answered the phone and Bruce identified himself, Tom said “Don’t tell me – your boat blew up? You can have my boat!” On day two of the regatta, the team showed up quite early and stripped the sails and running rigging off of Masquerade, brought over the gear from Arbitrage, tuned the rig and went sailing, pulling off a 2nd and a 3rd on the borrowed boat. They then finished out the regatta with two 5’s and a 7, for 27 points, and was the only team with all single digit races. Second Place went to Scooter Simmons on Blackhawk, six points back with 33 points, and third went to Jeff Littfin on Mojo, 14 points back with 41 points.

This was Bruce’s first Big Boat Series win and his second Rolex, after having won the 2009 Rolex Block Island Race Week in another borrowed (blue) boat, Power Play. Stone also became the first J/105 owner to win two separate fleet series in the same year: Fleet 1 in San Francisco with Arbitrage and Fleet 14 in Newport, RI with Power Play.