News

Snow Remains Undefeated at US Match Race Champs

Published on October 8th, 2016

San Diego, CA (October 8, 2016) – San Diego Yacht Club is hosting the 49th edition of the U.S. Match Racing Championship this weekend. Ten talented teams representing their home sailing organizations will go one-on-one for the Prince of Wales Bowl.

Saturday started with more wind in the morning than Friday. Overall the average wind speed for the day was 8 knots. On day 2 of racing, skippers were focused on good starts and boat handling. Spinnaker handling was also massively important throughout the day. On Friday and even more so on Saturday, a lot of passes downwind were happening.

Since rule 17 was recently deleted from match racing, it was evident that competitors were taking the opportunity to luff people downwind. There were a fair number of penalties again today all over the race course.

The eight skippers that progressed from the round robin to the quarter final were Snow, Dellenbaugh, Merrick, Darden, Durant, Lalumiere, Breault and Natvig. The match-ups for the quarter final were Snow vs Natvig, Dellenbaugh vs Breault, Lalumiere vs Darden and Durant vs Merrick. The first skippers to get three wins progress to Sunday’s semi-finals.

Snow and Dellenbaugh both won their first three races and Lalumiere won during the fourth. Durant and Merrick were the only pair left to race a fifth race which Merrick won. Durant carried two penalties, burning one during the race without a chance to burn the second penalty.

Snow is undefeated for the whole weekend so far winning 12 races. Dellenbaugh has only lost one race to Snow.

Quotes:
Nevin Snow (after round robin): “Boat speed was my key today. I wanted to focus on going fast and trying not to get caught up in what the other boats were doing.”

Nevin Snow (after quarter final): “We’re taking it race by race tomorrow. I think every race between the 4 in the quarter final will be tight. Our approach is to keep it cool and calm through the races and maintain that attitude throughout the last day.”

David Storrs (after round robin): “After 40 years of not sailing dinghies, I’ve been spoiled by standing behind the wheel of a Swedish Match 40 at Oakcliff or a Catalina 37 at Long Beach or even the big open feel of a CMRC Tom and found the J/22 to be really tough. It was a beautiful regatta and San Diego Yacht Club and US Sailing did a superb job running the championship. I look forward to coming back and doing better next time.”

Dustin Durant (after quarter final): “We had a rocky start to the whole regatta. We ended up 5th in the round robin which we were pleased with. We had a decent quarter final, tying it up 2-2, but having penalties in race 5 didn’t help. All in all, the team did well.”

For Sunday’s racing, Nevin Snow chose Colin Merrick to sail against in the Semi-Final round. David Dellenbaugh will sail against Charles Lalumiere.

Results after 9 of the 9 Flights for Stage 1, Round Robin 1
Nevin Snow 9 – 0
David Dellenbaugh 8 – 1
Colin Merrick 6 – 3
Glenn Darden 5 – 5
Dustin Durant 4 – 5
Charles Lalumiere 4 – 5
Nicole Breault 3 – 6
Steve Natvig 3 – 6
Ryan Seago 2 – 7
David Storrs 1 – 9