New and old talent to be featured at the 20th Annual Detroit Cup

International Match Race for the Detroit Cup © Martin Chumiecki Element Inc

The 20th edition of the International Match Race for the Detroit Cup will be held at the Bayview Yacht Club this week, starting on Thursday, August 21st and running through Sunday, August 24th.

This event will be the final stop of the 2025 USA Grand Slam series of four consecutive World Sailing Grade 2 match race events. It will feature eight teams of new and established talent from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the USA. They will be competing for valuable Grade 2 points on the World Sailing Match Race Rankings List as well as their share of the $7500 prize money purse offered at this year's event.

Being the final event in the Grand Slam, the Detroit Cup may also decide who wins the top prize of this series of four events that also includes the Oakcliff International and Thompson Cup in New York and the Chicago Match Cup: an automatic invitation to next year's Grade 1 Congressional Cup, the highest-ranked US event on the World Match Racing Tour held at Long Beach Yacht Club.

The top-ranked skipper in this year's field is 25th in the World Sailing Open rankings, is a member of Bayview Yacht Club, and is a perennial favorite here. This will be Ryan Seago's 10th appearance at the Detroit Cup, where he was a winner in 2018 and runner-up to Chris Poole in the Finals of last year's edition. Seago is racing again this year with Pete Peterson and Blake Stackpoole.

The next-highest ranked team is 30th in the world, led by Tom Picot from Australia, who this past weekend in Stage 3 of the USA Grand Slam series finished 5th place at the Chicago Match Cup. Picot will be keen to improve on his 8th-place showing at last year's Detroit Cup and will be sailing with team members Robin Chantrelle and Franck Lavenant.

The third-highest ranked team at 65th in the Open World rankings and 5th in the Women's World rankings is led by Megan Thomson from New Zealand. She was the runner-up at the latest Women's Match Racing World Championship and last week placed 9th in Chicago. Her team is one of two that will be racing in Detroit with four crew - these include Josi Andres, Tiana Wittey, and Hattie Rogers.

The remaining skippers in the field are:

• Christian Prendergast (USA) is ranked 44th in the world. He is ranked second in the Grand Slam series, finishing as the runner-up in Chicago last weekend, and has the best chance of unseating the series leader, Cole Tapper (AUS). His team is loaded with match racing talent: racing with Christian is last year's Detroit Cup champion and World No.1-ranked Chris Poole, along with Connor Mashland.
• Will Donovan (USA) is an intercollegiate sailor new to match race sailing and is ranked 177th in the World. He is racing with Tyler Nash and Connor Rosow.
• James Pinder (GBR) is ranked 183rd in the World and is racing with David Larson and Trevor Long.
• Michael Kirkman (USA) is ranked 233rd in the World and is based here at Bayview YC. He just graduated from Boston College, where he won this year's Intercollegiate Match Race National Championship. This week, he will be racing with Ryan Hexter and a team member to be announced soon.
• Savannah Taylor (CAN) is yet to be ranked in match race sailing, but has some significant talent on board with Steve Flam (multiple Congressional Cup winning tactician) and Jasper Waldman.

These teams will be racing on equally matched Ultimate 20s, a fast and nimble keelboat ideally suited for the widely varied conditions encountered in the race area set just south of the grounds at Bayview YC on the Detroit River. This setting is unique among most other match racing venues in the US because spectators on shore are only a few yards away from all the action these teams will display while racing at the event. Providing live commentary on shore will be media sailing personality Dobbs Davis, who for years was a competitor on the World Match Racing Tour and thus has insights into this most spectator-friendly form of the sport.

"We're pleased to provide once again this opportunity for high-level international match race sailing at the Detroit Cup," said Dr. Gary Shoemaker, Chairman of this year's Detroit Cup. "Bayview YC has a passion for this sport and every year has been pleased to have a solid turnout of both new and established talent come to participate in our event. We welcome all our club members and other spectators to join us for the next four days to observe some masterful sailing skills on display right here on the waterfront at Bayview."

During the event, racing format updates and live results will be posted here.

For other information, visit the event website at www.detroitcup.com.