It was great to get back out east for the 2022 Morgan Cup Hosted by New York Yacht Club. Newport Rhode Island in mid-August is second to none for great sailing, weather, and hospitality. This years Morgan Cup Team was the youngest team SDYC has assembled in recent memory. As a 6-year Morgan Cup Veteran, a large focus of mine was getting the new team up to speed and comfortable with keel boat team racing ahead of the event.
Your practice efforts and preparation are truly evaluated when the first race begins, and the regatta is underway. As the first day progressed, it felt as though we were a victim of “murphy’s law”- it seemed as though everything that could go wrong did. Our team suffered from OCS’s, one too many red flag penalties, boat handling spinnaker malfunctions, and found ourselves on the wrong side of an unlucky shift more than once. We ended day one behind the curve, but not out of the fight.
Day two brought stronger breeze than day one. With most of the cobwebs removed and team chemistry clicking, we had a much better day than the one prior- we ended day two with a 5-2 record, and “won the day.”
Unfortunately, with poor weather conditions for the final day of the event, the plan was to finish the round robin and call it a regatta. After a long morning of postponement, we only got to sail in 2 races in the final day- and mathematically, had no chance to win the event after a poor performance on day one. As the old saying goes “you can’t win the regatta on the first day, but you can lose it”- in hindsight our dreadful performance on day one took us out of the event. This is a painful lesson that I hope to not learn twice. A disappointing result for our ambitious team, but large improvements throughout the weekend and a young roster, gives us confidence for future events. We cannot thank SDYC enough for the support and opportunity to compete at this event, the pinnacle of team racing in the world.