The 2007/2008 ICSA Sloop National Championship

by Lynn Fitzpatrick, US Editor, Sail-World.com on 20 Nov 2007 Ten college sloop teams from around the country traveled to Ft. Worth, Texas to see who would take home the base of The Cornelius Shields Trophy. Fort Worth Boat Club and SEISA hosted the 2007/2008 ICSA Sloop National Championship. Ten crews of three competed in J22’s on Eagle Lake in gusty southerlies that ranged from 18 to 26 knots with even stronger gusts on Friday.

Given the conditions, it’s no surprise that there was a breakdown. There were wipeouts and there was an early conclusion to sailing on Friday. After four races on Friday, Boston College was atop the leaderboard. St. Mary’s and Navy ended the day one and two points behind B.C., respectively. Both teams must have been pushing hard to catch B.C. because they were the two teams that crashed and burned during racing.

While teams recovered overnight, the winds relented. Saturday morning’s races were held in light air. St. Mary’s demonstrated their light air prowess by taking a second and two firsts. They moved ahead of B.C. by seven points before the breeze shut down altogether and racing was postponed ashore and eventually abandoned for the afternoon.

Sailors waited for the wind to regain its strength on Sunday morning. Eventually the wind filled to a shifty 10-12 knots from the south. The sloop teams completed the full rotation and St. Mary’s pulled away further after B.C. was disqualified following a protest with St. Mary’s for a pre-start incident in the eighth race. B.C. was second in the regatta with 37 points and Navy, a team that got off to a strong start, finished third with 42 points.

As we approach Thanksgiving, some of our college sailing stars will go home to feast and start to prepare for finals, others will be heading out to Chicago for the Timme Angsten Regatta where they will sail 420’s out of Chicago Yacht Club. If they miss each other too much over the winter break, college co-eds may opt to attend the Sugar Bowl down at Tulane on the last two days of the year. The next weekend is the Rose Bowl out at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach, California.

A new regatta has been added to this year’s schedule, the Rainbow Intersectional. The regatta will be held on January 18-19 at the University of Hawaii in FJ’s. The registration deadline for the Rainbow is January 5, 2008.