2026 ISSA Mallory National Championship

It was a beautiful and sunny day on Lake Pontchartrain as the top teams in the nation were on hand for the 2026 ISSA Fleet Race National Championship. A light NW breeze at 6 knots greeted the teams to start the day, with Race 1A starting at 10:15.

Throughout the morning and early afternoon the breeze gradually swung to the right and faded to 3-6 knots, with powerboat chop at times making the racing quite difficult.

At 1:00pm, B division was kept ashore for a longer break while A division completed races 5&6.

After an attempt to get Race 5B off was called back, the breeze finally dropped out and the decision was made to send the fleets ashore at 2:30.

Everyone waited patiently until 5:15 when a southerly filled in nicely. Racing got back underway at 5:35 with a 6-11 knot SSW breeze. We were able to get through Race 8B and boats were back ashore by 7:45pm.

1 protest was filed resulting in a DSQ. The Mater Dei Monarchs hold the lead after day 1, with Lucy Beckham and Severn not far behind.

Tomorrow the divisions will swap boats, and racing will get underway at 9:00am.

Day 2 of the 2026 Mallory Championship got off to a rather dreadful start. As teams made their way to the racecourse the promising westerly flow died leaving us with next to nothing. The teams were sent back in to wait for the breeze, and fortunately a very short while later the breeze came back.

At 10:15 we got underway in a 4-5 knot WNW breeze. As the day went on the breeze actually built and clocked right. By early afternoon we had a terrific 6-10 knot N-NNE breeze that made for some good and tight racing.

The Race Committee made good use of the conditions and were successful in getting all the way to Race 16 in both divisions. Several protests were filed on the water, but ultimately only 1 was filed on shore resulting in a DSQ in race 9A. Redress was also granted to 1 team from Race 16B due to an improper OCS call from the RC.

In the end the Severn School emerged victorious with a very consistent performance throughout the regatta. St George’s also stormed up the leaderboard to take second, with the Mater Dei Monarchs taking third to complete the podium.

A big thank you to Southern Yacht Club, Jesuit High School, Community Sailing New Orleans, and Tulane University for the hard work that went into making the event a great success. And thank you to our excellent PRO Charles Higgins, head coach at Tulane University, for running great races.

Congratulations to the Severn School for winning the 2026 ISSA Fleet Race National Championship for the Mallory Trophy!

The following chart shows the relative rank of the teams as of the race indicated. Note that the races are ordered by number, then division, which may not represent the order in which the races were actually sailed.

The first place team as of a given race will always be at the top of the chart. The spacing from one team to the next shows relative gains/losses made from one race to the next. You may hover over the data points to display the total score as of that race.