Liam O'Keefe '26 Trophy Team Race

The Liam O'Keefe '26 Team Race Trophy kicked off the College Sailing spring season in New England with perfect weather for this time of year and some great early season team racing. This regatta honors Liam's passion and spirit, as one of our beloved teammates here at Brown. We lost Liam on May 31, 2024, after he was just named am ICSA All-American Open Skipper for the second year in a row and he helped lead Brown in winning the 2023 College Sailing Match Racing National Championship and the Fowle Trophy as College Sailing's "Best Overall" Team for 2023-2024. He was a leader, incredibly talented sailor, and loved by so so many. We think about him everyday here and will continue to honor him with this NEISA kickoff event each spring. A tremendous thank you to the Doug and Alison O'Keefe for coming to support and watch the great racing and spirit displayed by everyone.

With Temps in the mid 40's, lots of sun, and winds from mainly the south starting at 5-10 knots and building to 12-15 knots by afternoon. It was hard to believe that we had a historic blizzard and over 3 feet of snow on the ground less than a week ago. We started racing at 11:50am and were able to complete one round robin off all 8 teams by 3:00pm. We attempted a second full round robin of all 8 teams to get in more racing for everyone and came up just short of completing it by about 30 minutes before the sun went down at 5:30pm.

Thanks to Harvard Coach Mike O'Connor for being the NEISA Rep, Rob Migliaccio for the awesome photos, and to the Brown sailors who helped out all day: Tyler Lamm '28, Talia Levine '26, and William Baker '29. Thanks to coaches Rebecca McElvain (Dartmouth) and Joakim Karlsen (URI) who heard some protests as well, resulting in one DSQ for Roger Williams in race 28.

Congratulations to Harvard on winning the 2nd Annual Liam O'Keefe '26 Team Race Trophy with an undefeated record of 7-0 for the second year in a row.