New Wave Claims Third IC37 National Championship
by Stuart Streuli, NYYC 20 Jul 22:54 PDT
July 19-20, 2025
New Wave Claims Third IC37 National Championship at the New York Yacht Club © Paul Todd /
www.outsideimages.com
For the third time in four years, Steve Liebel's New Wave team emerged victorious in the the IC37 National Championship, sailed over the weekend out of the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court in Newport, R.I. The seventh edition of this annual championship was highlighted by a 26-boat fleet, the biggest ever for the one-design keelboat.
It was a dominant performance by the veteran team, which won the first race and the final race, only finished outside the top 10 in one of the eight races and claimed the championship by 19 points. Of the 26 teams competing, only six avoided at least one finish of 20th or worse, and just nine points separated Wade Waddell's Pegasus team in second from Bill Zartler's Voodoo Too crew in seventh. Rounding out the top five were Hannah Swett on MO in third, Chris Lewis' Qubit in fourth and Clinton Hayes' Gloriana in fifth.
"It's a big number out there, 26 37-foot boats that are identical," says Liebel. "We all get to that windward mark at the same time. It's very exciting, and it's very rewarding."
The National Championships were part of a big three days at Harbour Court. Also contested this weekend were the inaugural edition of the NYYC Coastal Races Regatta and the 69th edition of the Queen's Cup.
Now in its seventh season, the IC37 fleet, which features one-design sails, coed crew requirements and fixed standing rigging, has evolved into one of the most level, and most challenging, platforms in sailing. As a result, says Liebel, it's the little things that end up making a big difference when it comes to separating from the fleet.
"More than half our team has sailed together for probably 40 years," says Liebel. "And the other four, we've sailed with 50 times, 80 times or 100 times. We have one new youngster on our crew that has switched in. It's his third regatta, but we're really fortunate that we have a great crew. They know what to do, and that's the difference. That's how you turn a 24th into an 11th. The crew work, the boat handling, the weight movement, the little tweaks, make all the difference in the world. I'm very lucky to have such a great crew. There are nine very, very good people on our team. And it's shows."
For Waddell's Pegasus team, representing Corinthian Yacht Club in Marblehead, Mass., the National Championships were an opportunity to prepare for the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup in September, the premiere championship in amateur big-boat sailing. Waddell and his team finished second in 2023 Invitational Cup, then won the Resolute Cup in 2024 to qualify for this year's edition of the biennial late-summer classic.
"It was good," says Waddell of the team's runner-up finish in the Nationals. "But it felt like we did it the hard way." He noted that the team had to battle in every race, though he also acknowledged that challenges now will only better prepare the team for what's to come in September.
"Every iteration of Invitational Cup, the level keeps going up," says Waddell. "If we came back into Newport [this September] at same level we were at in 2023, that might not even get us into the top 5. We're looking at all the fine details of how we get 5 percent better, having this idea of striving for excellence and not thinking that we got second last time and that's good enough."
In addition to the Corinthian Yacht Club team, crews from eight other Invitational Cup entries, including those from Ireland, Great Britain and Canada, used the National Championship to tune up for the September regatta.
Alongside the IC37 National Championships, the New York Yacht Club ran two events for boats racing under the ORC and PHRF handicap rules: the inaugural edition of the NYYC Coastal Races Regatta and the Queen's Cup.
Over the three days, Victor Wild's TP52 Fox matched the dominance shown by New Wave, handily winning ORC 0 in Friday and Saturday's Coastal Races Regatta and then rolling to victory in the Queen's Cup's single race on Sunday.
"We have a lot of [speciality] sails that we've been working on for a lot of years," says Andy Horton, who called tactics all weekend, while Olympic legend Santiago Lange drove for the Coastal Races and Dylan Whitcraft took the wheel for the Queen's Cup, which requires an amateur helmsperson. "Some events, the way that they're scored, we don't always put all of these sails on our certificate. This weekend, with the format being coastal races with a lot of cool courses up and around the bay and lots of corners and legs, there was high potential to use those sails. We haven't had that opportunity since the ORC Worlds here last year. We always like to make it a little complicated and push the group; so we had a couple days of training. Most importantly, it's the people you have. We just have a great group of guys who have all been with us at one regatta or another, some of them five or six years with the team."
Rounding out the podium for the Queen's Cup were Art Santry's 66-foot Temptation/Oakcliff in second and Oivind Lorentzen's Jax in third. Also winning their classes in the Coastal Races Regatta were Jax in ORC A and Brian Cunha's Irie in PHRF.