Youth Match Race Clinic & Regatta
INAUGURAL YOUTH MATCH RACE CLINIC & REGATTA COMPLETED
Newport Harbor Yacht Club Team Awarded the “Rose Cup”
Following an all-day clinic Friday and two intense match-racing days, Sunday, May 16, saw the completion of BYC’s Inaugural Youth Match Race Clinic & Regatta. On Saturday the wind and weather could not have been better for 6 flights of 5 matches each. Can’t say the same about Sunday when the winds were lighter, the sun stayed behind cloud cover and the temperature was chill. Yet the teams still got in an additional 3 flights. Three of the ten teams won seven of their races for a three-way tie. After applying the tie breakers, the end results of the double Round Robin are as follows:
First Place - Newport Harbor Yacht Club, led by skipper Chris Segerblom with his crew of Connor Bathen and Kieran Chung. They will be memorialized on the new Rose Cup, and in addition they have earned a berth at the 44th Governor's Cup Challenge to be raced in July at BYC. Their only losses were to the King Harbor Yacht Club and the US Merchant Marine Academy teams.
Second Place - San Diego Yacht Club, led by Jake LaDow, with Max Hutcheson and Jake Reynolds. SDYC lost only to NHYC and Pleon Yacht Club.
Third Place -Mission Bay Yacht Club, led by Scott Hoffman, with Evan Hoffman and Eric Alamillo. MBYC was defeated by NHYC and SDYC only.
The three visiting teams from outside of California each won five of their nine races. - They were the US Merchant Marine Academy team, placing fourth over-all, followed by Annapolis Yacht Club and Pleon Yacht Club.
The Nick Scandone Sportsmanship/Leadership Memorial was awarded to the Annapolis Yacht Club team for their generous, cooperative Corinthian attitude throughout the event. Mary Kate Scandone, Nick’s widow, was in attendance at the awards ceremony, and proudly congratulated each of the young men – Mike Carr, Skipper, and his crew Scott Houck and Brady Stagg.
The impressive Andy Rose Championship Cup (“ROSE CUP”) is aptly named for Andy, a long-time supporter of Youth Match Racing, a former America’s Cup Tactician and himself a two-time winner of the Governor’s Cup Youth Match Race Championship. The cup will be engraved each year with the names of the winning team members; the yacht club the team represents and the name of the host yacht club for that year. Also, each year the winning team from this event will be invited to compete in the prestigious Governor’s Cup Challenge held each year in late July.
Ten teams competed, sailing the NBSSA owned fleet of Governor's Cup 21's. Brian Angel, a former Governor’s Cup champion himself, led a team of coaches who worked with the racers to increase their match racing skills. Brian observed that all of the participants seemed to get a lot out of the Clinic, with excellent questions and answers. He felt that the racers were very accomplished and did better than he expected on the race course.
Trophies were presented by Terry Schilling, Chairman of the event, and Commodore Richard Pacelli. Included in the audience were many who had been instrumental in the development of this inaugural event, including Andy Rose, Larry Law, Rear Commodore Judi Gorski, Fleet Captain John Papadopoulos, PRO Don Becker, and Race Administrator, Becky Lenhart. In addition, Junior Staff Commodore Alan Andrews, the designer of the Gov Cup 21’s attended with his wife, Molly Lynch and his mother, Betty Andrews.
The event is sponsored by BYC, by the Newport Balboa Sailing & Seamanship Association (NBSSA), owner and manager of the Gov Cup 21 Fleet used in this event, Leading Edge Yacht Services and by Volcom. For further information and full results, please see the BYC web site, balboayachtclub.com, under Youth Sailing.