Kennedy Cup

Kennedy Cup Day 1

10 Teams are on hand at the Naval Academy competing for the Kennedy Cup aboard Navy’s fleet of 44 foot sloops.

Despite a dismal local wind forecast for today, enough of a southerly filled in to allow for two races.

After a 40 minute AP, the wind stabilized from the south at 4-6 knots and racing got underway. Cal Maritime recovered from a poor start to come back and take the win with Coast Guard in second and Wisconsin in third.

For race 2, the wind lightened slightly but PRO Nelson Pemberton got a course set and race 2 started in 4-5 knots of wind. After a solid first race, Wisconsin demonstrated their performance was no fluke and took the win. Kings Point recovered from a 6th in race 1 to take second while Webb took 3rd.

The race committee worked hard in an attempt to squeeze in a third race but the conditions would not cooperate with big holes developing.

Competitors were sent back to the dock with the requirement that all perform a wind dance for better conditions tomorrow.

At the end of the day, Wisconsin is in first with 4 points, Cal Maritime second with 6, and KP, Coast Guard and Webb in a 3 way tie for third.

Racing continues tomorrow.

Jahn Tihansky Regatta Chairman

Day 2 of the Kennedy Cup turned out to be just slightly better than forecasted with enough wind to get the fleet around the race course for one race today.

At 1000 this morning, the Chesapeake looked like the millpond that had been predicted. While it would have been easy to throw in the towel early, PRO Nelson Pemberton and his RC team patiently hunted all over for wind, twice moving the race area in an attempt to get something going.

With less than 40 minutes before the race start deadline of 1400, they got a course set and a race started in a SSE wind of 4-5 knots.

Kings Point won the pin for the third race in a row which allowed them to win the left earning huge dividends with both pressure and left shift. They led the race wire to wire navigating around huge potholes of lulls and random shifts but could only wait at the finish line to see how those ahead of them in the standings would fare when the dust settled.

As it turned out, Saturday leader Wisconsin stumbled to a 7th and Cal Maritime 8th which earned KP this year’s Kennedy Cup victory! Wisconsin held on to finish second overall with Coast Guard a point back in third.

A huge thanks to our RC volunteers including Jan Richardson, Tom Stalder, Bill Museler, Dana Howe, John Van Voorhis and a bunch of our Midshipmen team members.

Thanks also to our safety officers Lynn McClaskey, Kellen Browne, Duane Geruschat, Carroll Sparwasser, Jay Butler, Dave Shaeffer, Bill White, Dan Trammell, Aron Axe and Bill Krafft.

Lastly, thanks to our jury led by Chief Judge, Dan Trammell which included John McPherson, Lynn McClaskey and Nelson Pemberton. Thankfully, there were no protests to resolve.

Big congratulations to the Mariners of King’s Point who earned the right to represent the US at the Student Yachting World Cup in 2024.

Jahn Tihansky Regatta Chair

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.