ISSA Team Racing Championship (Baker Trophy)

The Baker Trophy started off with a wind delay and SailMaine’s Turbo 420’s did not leave the dock until 1100. However, everyone enjoyed Chris Robinson’s homemade breakfast sandwiches which made the wind delay a little less painful. The wind started to fill in as 6-8 knot southerly breeze under mostly sunny skies. PRO Ron Hopkins and his crew did a great job to constantly adjust the course as the breeze shifted to the left and increased to 8-12 knots.

The day ended with two full round robin’s of 66 races completed and racing ending near 1900. The fleet of 12 teams was then broken into championship groupings of Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Gold:

Antilles Christchurch Ransom Everglades Point Loma

Silver:

Severn School Newport Harbor High School Tabor Academy The Hotchkiss School

Bronze:

Clear Falls High School Minnetonka Grosse Point South High School Olympia High School

Competitors arrived Sunday morning and met with cloudy skies. The breeze built from the south again but very unstable 4-5 knots after a 1 hour delay. The race committee constantly adjusted the course to keep it square. Competitors saw races with the wind coming from the south, south east, east, north and then back to south east. Gold fleet raced a double Championship round and a single round for Silver and Bronze ending the day with 36 races in challenging conditions.

After starting the event with 2-3, Christchurch got hot and went 11-1 only losing the final race of the event after having sealed the championship.

Congratulations to all the competitors and volunteers for their hard work!

Thank you to all the volunteers, umpires and staff for making this event possible. Host SailMaine crew of Sam Scribner, Bill Marshall, Jordan Parks and Michael McAllister. Also thanks to Fore Point Marina for the generous use of their docks to allow incredibly close spectating. Thank you Quantum Sails for delivering a fresh set of newly ordered SM sails just in time for competition. Thank you to Yale Cordage for providing new jib sheets for all the boats.

Umpire crew of John Tagliamonte, Don Becker, Vicki Sodaro, Dick Gumpert, Pete Levesque, Emily Shanley-Roberts, Rick Myers, Rob Dresser, Leo Berendes, Taylor Martin, Alex Sutula and Caleb Niles

Many, many thanks to PRO Ron Hopkins and his crew Carter Brock, John Holt, Eamon Browne, Alex Bodenski, Gregg Carville, Shelly Paules, Jerry Senger, Duncan Bruce, Tim Tolford, Stephan Wipple, Jason Field, Stu Nickerson, Stephan Koscaz, and finally NESSA Scorer Carl Zimba for keeping it all organized and available on TechScore.