2025 Azalea Bowl Regatta

The 2025 Azalea Bowl featured teams from five of the six conferences in College Sailing with teams traveling from as far as California, Michigan, and Rhode Island. The festive weekend began with great hospitality and tasty Spoonfed Kitchen breakfast for sailors, coaches, and volunteers on the soundside of Wrightsville Beach, and great, breezy conditions. With a concurrent high school regatta and more than 40 boats on the soundside Banks Channel, regatta spectating was exciting and full of opportunity. With a steady 12-14 mph southeasterly breeze and chop, racing began on time. The third race of each set finished upwind to expedite rotations from the CYC docks. Morning current was aggressive and was a significant factor in course-side decisions in the first two sets. Windspeed built throughout the day reaching upper teens by the mid-afternoon as the switching current further complicated the racecourse. Racing was completed with a one-and-one rotation for a seventh race in each division. A few breakdowns were issued, and one formal protest was heard resulting in a DSQ. Races averaged 17 mins. The Azalea Bowl dinner and college information night presentations began shortly after racing wrapped.

Sunday morning breeze was spicy and following a brief morning meeting, the RC decided to send out College’s A-Division and keep the concurrent high school sailors shoreside. A-Division was able to complete the two-race set began on Saturday evening, but with several significant capsizes, strong gusts, and building consistent breeze north of 18mph, B-Division’s launch was recalled for things to calm down. Conditions were monitored by the CYC safety team and the decision to abandon the effort was made at noon. Special thanks to the RC Pierce and Kiki Barden, Jay Smith, and more, as well as the numerous volunteers and CYC safety officers led by Sterling Powell. Special thanks to the CYC team led by Jack Gower for running an outstanding regatta and shoreside operation. Awards were presented to the teams winning A-Division (USMMA), B-Division (RWU), as well as event podium with USMMA-Kings Point winning the event followed by Roger Williams and NC State University.

Event photos are now available online at: https://capefearcommunitysailing.org/

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.