Winnebago Wins Overall Verve Cup Offshore Trophy

Chicago, IL (August 9, 2015) – Tim Rathbun’s Tartan 10 Winnebago won Chicago Yacht Club’s 2015 Overall Verve Cup Offshore Trophy. This is the second overall win for the program since 2012, with the 23rd edition of this annual event held August 7-9.

“The biggest challenge of this event was that the youngest person on our boat is 44 years old and the oldest person on the second place boat is 33,” said Rathbun. “All the old guys in a young man’s sport managed to do okay.”

Winnebago was tied with Meat at the beginning of the final day of racing with 30 points each. It all came down to the last downwind leg of the only race of the day on the south circle. “We were four boats behind Meat going to the finish. We stayed right – they went to the left and ran out of air,” stated Rathbun. “Sailboat races aren’t won – they’re lost. So we didn’t really win, but we were very lucky.”

Chris Duhon, owner of the Beneteau 36.7 Tequila Mockingbird, has “always been a bridesmaid, never a bride” until today when they won first place in the fourteen boat one design section. While Tequila has never finished first in a three-day event, they have had several podium finishes including second place at the 2015 Chicago NOOD and a third at the 2013 Beneteau 36.7 North American Championship. “Today our whole goal was to stay in front and stay clean,” said Duhon. “For a three day regatta, it’s tough to sail consistently fast every day.”

For the second year in a row, David Gustman’s Northstar won their section. Although there weren’t enough J/109s for a one design section this year, Gustman said that the ORR 3 Section was still very competitive. “The first day we won a race by about a foot and lost a race by about a foot,” he stated. “Friday was perfect – probably one of the best days that I’ve ever been out on a race course. The Race Committee was excellent and ran four races bang-bang-bang. They just nailed it out.”

The Asylum, owned by J/105 Fleet Captain Jon Weglarz, took top spot in the one design section. “Our team won the regatta in the first two days. Today we just maintained our position.” The top three boats – Sealark, Vytis and The Asylum – have been battling each other for 15 years in their fleet. “Our section was a little light. We hope that for 2016 the J/105s will be back with more entries.”

The Great Lakes 70s voted to include the Verve Cup in their season championship for 2015 making their first appearance in two years. ORR 1 Section winner Peter Reichelsdorfer’s Evolution started the regatta off strong with three bullets in their section. “Friday was a really good day. Yesterday we got caught out on a couple shifts, and that’s where things went awry. Today we stayed clean and started very well,” said Reichelsdorfer. “The GL70s wanted to come down, support the Club and support the [Verve Cup] Trophy with our class.”

Event details – Results

Source: Morgan Kinney, Chicago Yacht Club