Team Racing World Championship 2025 at New York Yacht Club - Preview
by New York Yacht Club 17 May 00:35 AEST
May 28 - June 1, 2025
NYYC Global Team Race © Daniel Forster
A new format, a different type of boat and a ten-year gap are all conspiring to tear apart any attempt to build a form guide for the 2025 Team Racing World Championship, which is set for May 28 to June 1 at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court.
From 1995 through 2015, this championship was contested ten times, but always in two-person dinghies and using the three-on-three format that is a staple of scholastic and university-level competition in the United States, Great Britain and elsewhere. This year's reinvented team racing world championship will utilize 23-foot Sonar keelboats and the two-on-two format that has emerged over the last decade.
Still, team racing is team racing and, in the search to identify a few favorites, the spotlight falls on those teams that have past championship pedigree: the host New York Yacht Club, Corinthian Yacht Club from Marblehead, Mass., and the West Kirby Hawks from Great Britain.
The Hawks won the title in 2011 in Schull, Ireland. Of the eight sailors that will make up the West Kirby team this year, four were part of the world championship effort in 2011.
"The West Kirby Hawks were formed in 2005 by Andy Cornah and Ben Field," says Dom Johnson, West Kirby skipper and team captain. "I joined Andy and Ben in 2008 with the aim of us getting selected for the ISAF team racing worlds in Perth. Familiarity is always helpful. We have a pretty good idea of each other's strengths and what to expect from each other in certain circumstances around the team racecourse."
The 2025 Team Racing World Championship will be sailed out of the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court in Newport, R.I., and organized by the New York Yacht Club in conjunction with World Sailing. Twelve teams of between six and eight sailors, from 10 countries, will compete in a two-on-two format. Team racing is an exciting and spectator-friendly niche of the sport, with races typically lasting 15 minutes or less, and on-the-water umpiring eliminating the need for post-race protest hearings.
Racing in the 2025 Team Racing World Championship will start mid-morning on Thursday, June 29, and run through the late afternoon each day, weather permitting.
See the team rosters here.
While the West Kirby Hawks team won a world championship in lighter boats in 2011, the crew has plenty of experience with the Sonar and two-on-two format. Cornah and Field sailed in the 2018 and 2022 editions of the Global Team Race Regatta, hosted by the New York Yacht Club in Sonars and using the two-on-two format.
"In some ways, 2v2 is simpler than 3v3 in that last boat loses and there are less combinations," says Johnson. "Performing well in team races usually requires a combination of good boat speed, boat handling and tactics, and quick decision making. The experience within the team should assist with us adapting to the boats and the format of the event as quickly as possible."
The two skippers for the New York Yacht Club team, Clay Bischoff and Pete Levesque, won back-to-back team racing world championships in 2007 and 2009. However, their recent experience together has been limited.
"I think the biggest thing is that we know each other; we've been sailing with and against each other since 1999," says Levesque. "We know each other's tendencies, strengths and weaknesses. In the years we haven't shared a racecourse I'm sure we've both changed, but like Maverick and Iceman, we're back for the sequel."
The final team to feature a former world champion is Corinthian Yacht Club. Tim Wadlow, a two-time Olympian and 2005 team racing world champion, and his teammates qualified for the championship by way of the Baldwin Cup Team Race, hosted in April by Newport Harbor Yacht Club in Newport Beach, Calif.
"The preparation we received during the Baldwin Cup was priceless," says Corinthian Team Captain Will Bailey. "We still have a lot to refine in our 2v2 game, but getting to sail against so many high-level teams allowed us to get a ton of good reps."
In the last few years, the Corinthian Yacht Club program has consistently found success team racing at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court, finishing in the top three in the previous four editions of the Morgan Cup, one of the top keelboat team race regattas in the United States. Last summer, the Massachusetts club also won the Global Team Race Regatta, held in Italy.
"Tim and I have been team racing together for almost 10 years, so we've seen a lot of battles," says Bailey. "We are always working on dialing in communication, and a lot of that will translate to the 2v2 format. I think the synergy is more critical in 2v2, there is a lot less room for error when there is only one play, versus in 3v3 there are a number of different combos which can win a race."
The Newport Harbor Yacht Club team, which won the Baldwin Cup to earn its berth in the world championship, doesn't have any former team race world champions on its roster, but must also be considered among the favorites. The West Coast club won the Global Team Race Regatta in Newport, R.I., in 2022 and England in 2023 and finished third last year. It's also the defending champion at the Morgan Cup. Team captain Andrew Person and Brian Bissell will be the skippers for Newport Harbor.
"Brian and I have been team race partners for six years now," says Person. "We practice together every week in the winter and spring and have spent countless hours discussing every scenario that we encounter while racing. There is no teammate I would rather pair up with. In 2v2 the most important thing is positioning relative to your opponents and teammates. Brian and I are comfortable in precarious situations because we know the other one will be positioned correctly to protect each other."
While the 2025 world champion is likely to emerge from this quartet of favorites, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that an unheralded team could finish inside the top four. Taking any team for granted at this world championship is a mistake.
"There will be a range of team-racing experience across the other teams, but they will all, no doubt, be quick sailors and able to make the Sonars go fast," says Johnson, the West Kirby captain. "Any team will have the ability to take a race of another, and we will expect all the teams to rapidly improve as the event advances through the preliminary stages."