Mid-Atlantic Team Race Challenge

Wild conditions on day one. A front moving through the area brought lots of rain and winds that were all over the compass. Racing started out of the Southwest at 8-15 knots and quickly clocked to the West, then Northwest, and finally Northeast while never dropping below 8 knots. The race management crew worked tirelessly to move marks and keep races as square as possible and fair. Lightning moving though halted racing at 10:45. Around 1:00 sailors were sent back out. Breeze then died and refilled as the breeze continued to clock around. Multiple wind delays slowed the rotation to a crawl until the breeze finally filled from the Southeast at 3-7 knots. The last race of the first round was completed just as the sun was setting. Sunday's forecast calls for very strong winds early as the regatta will try to complete the double round robin and single final four format.

Currently three teams sit atop the leaderboard in a 3-way tie with 6 wins apiece. Many thanks to the umpires and the Monarchs sailors who sat out in the driving rain all day to run solid races for this important qualifying event.

In complete contrast to yesterday, sailors were greeted with stiff 20-30 knots winds from the Northwest with gusts around 40 knots. Luckily the forecast was correct and after a short delay, racing got underway at 10:45 am. A low tide kept the rotation slow but the race management crew once again was able to just fit the second round in by the time deadline of 3:00pm. Unfortunately a redress hearing for breakdown heard at the end of the last race resulted in a re-sail being awarded to Kings Point for their race against Penn in race 37. Since the 3:00 cutoff had already passed, there was no provision to do the re-sail after 3:00 and the round was determined to be incomplete. Therefore the results were not used. This left the tie from round 1 at the top of the leaderboard to be broken with ICSA Procedural Rules. The races between the tied teams in the incomplete round were used as the sail-off results and this left the tie still unbroken with each team on 2 wins apiece. After the third tie-breaker was applied, the top two teams were determined based on total points when the tied teams met.

Congratulations to the U.S. Naval Academy and Old Dominion University for narrowly advancing to the next round of conference play at the Capt. Prosser trophy next weekend, also hosted at Old Dominion.

A big thank you to regatta sponsor Spectrum Financial for providing breakfast to all of the competitors for both days of the event. The coffee and bagels were enjoyed by sailors, coaches, umpires, and spectators with much appreciation.

Finally the regatta could not have happened without the tireless work of the Monarch sailors who worked hard to keep the races running smoothly and fairly. An equal thanks should be given to our amazing umpire team of Chief Umpire Rob Overton, Don Griglack, Christine Accettella, Sam Ficksman, and recent college sailors Brady Stagg, Andrea Luna, and Colin Voigt.