Baldwin Cup, Final Day Recap

The final day of the 2010 Baldwin Cup at Newport Harbor Yacht Club greeted the sailors with grey skies and a great 8-10 knot breeze. Racing got started on time at 10am and the racing was intense. Every team has grown over the course of the regatta to a point where there were no easy races. Top to bottom, the competition was fierce.

St. Francis started the day tied for 4th with 10 points and had 4 races left (worth 2 points each). In order to secure a spot in the Semi-Finals, we either had to win all 4 of our races or win 3 of the 4 races and hope for a little bit of help from other teams.

Our first race of the day was against Rochester Yacht Club. This team started the regatta off a bit slow but quickly caught up by pulling off surprise victories against New York Yacht Club and San Diego Yacht Club. Unfortunately, they got the jump on us too as we ended up losing the race to them. This put us in a very tough spot to make the Semi-Finals but there was still some hope.

Our second race of the day was against Boston Yacht Club. Where we had a relatively easy time against them in the first round robin, Boston came out guns blazing in this race. It was a very tight race that we ended up pulling out just at the finish line.

The third race of the day promised to be a barn burner against our friends from across the bay, San Francisco Yacht Club. Not only was this race for bragging rights, it was for at least 5th place overall in the standings. The losing team in this race was eliminated from a potential spot in the Semi-Finals. The race was intense with the lead changing multiple times. We got one of the San Francisco boats to foul at the last mark and were able to isolate another boat to finish the race with a winning 3,4,5,6 combination to San Francisco's 1,2,7,8. The tiebreaker for the even scores is the team with the 1st place loses the race.

In between the San Francisco race and our final race of Round Robin 2 was a small break in our schedule which enabled us to watch the action and root for some teams that would help us get into the Semi-Finals. Unfortunately, we did not get the help we needed and were eliminated from the Semi-Finals just before our last race of Round Robin 2.

With nothing to lose, we went into our final race against Southern Yacht Club. The race was another tight one (as they all were, across the board). We held a dominant 2,3,4,7 around the leeward mark and did a great job of zone coverage up the final beat to take out Southern Yacht Club.

Our regatta over, we then took to the spectator seats on the dock to watch the Semi-Finals and Finals. In the first semi, Southern Yacht Club was defeated by New York Yacht Club 2 wins to 0. In the second semi, top seed Newport Harbor defeated Seattle Yacht Club 2-0. This set up a thrilling final between NHYC and NYYC. New York ended up winning the finals 3 races to 1 to repeat as Baldwin Cup Champions. Congratulations to New York Yacht Club!

Final Standings:
1) New York Yacht Club
2) Newport Harbor Yacht Club
3) Southern Yacht Club
4) Seattle Yacht Club
5) St. Francis Yacht Club
(I did not get the full final standings but will get them soon)

St. Francis Yacht Club Team Racing had a good event and grew immensely during the racing. We know that we had the talent to compete for the overall win but just had one too many stumbles during the round robins to keep us out of the Semi-Finals. We would like to thank Newport Harbor Yacht Club for putting on a fantastic event and Phil and Peggy Koen for hosting some of our sailors. The next event for St. Francis is the Jackson Cup in 2 weeks (April 24-25) at Boston Yacht Club.

Stay tuned for photos from the event!

St. Francis Team Racing

The 2010 Baldwin Cup is a 4 on 4 team racing event at Newport Harbor Yacht Club sailed in Harbor 20s. Sailing for St. Francis were: Scott Sellers/Geoff McDonald, Shawn Bennet/John Collins, Edward Conrad/Avery Patton, and Harrison Turner/Kristin Maberry.