On June 17 Storm Brown, Andy Reiter and I [Scott Sinks] teamed up to race in Newport Beach for the Rose Cup. The Rose Cup is a match race championship sailed in Governor 21 boats. With not much match race experience and eager to learn we made our goal to qualify for the Gov Cup, sailed in July. The top 4 skippers qualify for the Gov Cup. The first two days were practice days and we grew as a team not only learning about match racing but also how the boats worked and how we worked together as a team.
The first day of racing brought fair wind and lots of races. We ended the day with only two loses putting us tied for 2nd! The next day brought similar conditions, and we finished the round robin with three loses and began the knockout round. We continued sailing well and winning races, and by the end of the day we found ourselves having qualified for the Governors Cup and in the finals on Sunday!
On the final day we went against the defending Rose Cup champion to a best of three series. Unfortunately we did not have what it took to win in the finals and went 0-2 to finish a respectable 2nd place.
Thank you so much to SDYC for making this regatta and experience match-racing possible. My team and I are looking forward to representing San Diego Yacht Club at the Governor’s Cup in late July and we hope to get revenge and bring the championship home. Thank you so much!