This past summer San Diego Yacht Club had the honor of hosting the 2024 CHUBB Triple-Handed National Championship for the Sears Cup. This event was a momentous experience made possible by long hours contributed by Junior Program staff, volunteers from our membership and SDYC staff on every level. The Sears Cup entry list boasted 17 teams, meaning 68 competitors, from 10 of US Sailing recognized areas across the country.
Our team's journey to the 2024 Sears Cup began in early March with the SODA Match Racing Clinic coached by Dave Perry. There Dave inspired and encouraged us to start a weekly Tuesday match racing practice for Juniors in our club J-22s. At those practices the team came together and started preparing for the J Area Qualifier, also hosted by San Diego Yacht Club in J-22s. Ryan Downey stepped into the position of skipper with Victoria Stout trimming the jib, and I took the position of bow.
Unfortunately, the night before the qualifier our teammate, who was going to be the main/kite trimmer, got seriously ill and wasn't able to make her flight back from the east coast. Ava Gustafson (our excellent driver from last year's team) was able to be our last minute fill in. Our team was able to persevere through our lack of practice as a team and place 2nd at our qualifier. Our qualification sent us into the next phase of preparation with the school year winding down and summer on the horizon.
Our team managed to work in practices and lean on some of the local talent within the club to pull us together as a team. We competed in the Crowbar regatta as our practice regatta where we placed 5th overall, finishing one point behind the SFYC junior team. Our regatta clinic day increased our confidence as we continued to dial in our boatspeed and familiarize ourselves with racing cityfront.
During the event we experienced an unusual southerly breeze, making for challenging conditions. A solid first day put us in 4th place overall. However, the breeze dying and shifting considerably resulted in a 10th during our third race, affecting our overall standing substantially in a no-drop series. We finished day one with almost four hours on AP and many new friends as a result of the bonding time. Our second day was strong enough to earn us a spot in the gold fleet for the third and final day of racing.
We opened our last day with a 3rd and a 4th place, putting us in 3rd place overall by just a point. On the next start we won the significantly favored pin and led strongly to the left. However, 5 minutes after the start our southerly breeze completely shut off and filled from the right, promptly flipping the order of the fleet. Despite the disappointing 9th from the last race we rallied and finished the regatta with a 2nd to put us in 5th.
The team's debrief of the regatta is that it was an honor to represent SDYC in our home venue. Even though we just missed the podium, we are still proud of the significant challenges we overcame. Our improvement and effort showed through the fact we finished ahead of the team who beat us in our local qualifier and ahead of the SFYC juniors who beat us in the Crowbar regatta. Everyone on our team is grateful for this opportunity,