Another regatta came to the tri-town this summer, this time to Mattapoisett.

After two regattas at the Beverly Yacht Club in Marion last week, the Mattapoisett Yacht Club played host to the Ensign National Championship Regatta from Aug. 14 to 18.

The club started building its fleet about nine years ago, and has since built a “pretty competitive” fleet, according to Chairman of the regatta Fran Grenon.

Mattapoisett hosted the regional regatta three years ago, and put in a bid for the national race about two years ago.

This specific regatta moves around year to year, visiting different yacht clubs or marinas. Since the Mattapoisett Yacht Club is sponsoring this year’s race, it is responsible for helping crews get their boats launched and providing moorings for out-of-towners.

“We partnered with the Mattapoisett Boatyard and they were great with helping us get boats off the trailer and into the water,” participant and organizer John Mello said

The boats that participants are racing are the Pearson Ensign models. The boats were built in the 60s and 70s according to Mattapoisett Boatyard General Manager David Kaiser.

“They’re all 50 year old boats that have basically been restored,” he said. “It’s like sailing around an antique.”

The Ensign isn’t a hugely popular boat, mostly because there just aren’t that many out there.

“They stopped being mass produced in the early 80s,” Mello said. “There are only about 1,800 of them total. You can still get them custom made but they’re not mass produced anymore. To my knowledge there is only one Ensign outside of the United States right now.”

People who are “hard core racers” tend not to favor the Ensign class because it’s a slower boat, Mello said, but he thinks the races are just as intense.

“Everyone else is racing the same boat,” he said. “Everyone is going the same speed. They end up being really close races though, it’s pretty exciting once you’re out there.”

This specific class of boat was designed by Carl Alberg, and the race draws in people from around the country. According to Kaiser there are 25 boats from out of town belonging to participants from Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and New Jersey.

There are 29 boats racing and four people on every boat, so there are around 120 people are participating in the regatta.

The race takes place in the Mattapoisett outer harbor, starting off from Angelica Point. Each race takes about an hour and a half and Kaiser estimates the course to be about five miles.

This regatta is meant to be a fun event, with people from around the country coming to race and enjoy social activities. In addition to typical prizes such as for the winner of each race and the overall winner, there are also fun prizes such as the ones that go to the best looking boat, the “mid-fleet boat” award which goes to the boat the ends in the middle of the pack, and even a last place trophy.