Sail Canada Sailor of the Month: Queen’s Keelboat Team

Sail Canada’s Sailor of the Month award acknowledges sailing achievements by Canadians involved or associated with the sport in all its forms. Here are the latest recipients…

On November 7th, Queen’s University became the second North American team to win the Student Yachting World Cup in its 36 year history. Held November 2 to 7 in La Rochelle, France, eight international teams competed on the 31-foot Grand Surprise in a mix of inshore and offshore races.

The Canadian boat was helmed by fourth year engineering student Will Jones with crew members Clifton Kartner, Daniel Sheedy, Denby Mcdonnell, Sam Thompson, Adrienne Gudreault, Claire Boileau, and Connor Mackenzie.

The Golden Gaels got off to a slow start, posting their first race win after 5 races of the 17 race series. The Canadians gained momentum throughout the week posting a 3-1-1-2 on the penultimate day. Canada sat in first place, with a 3-point lead, heading into the final day.

The final two races of the event would consist of a regular fleet race and a medal race that could not be dropped from their overall score. The first race of the final day, Queen’s managed to extend their lead to 4 points, but after missing the first shift during the medal race, Canada was forced to claw back into contention, finishing fourth, and ultimately winning the regatta by one single point.

“For hours we could barely believe it,” exclaimed crew Clifton Kartner. “We checked results over and over for protests. It took some time to set in.”

Team Canada (Queen’s University) clinched The Student Yachting World Cup 2016, followed by the California Maritime Academy (USA) only one point behind, Southampton University (England), Cork Institute of Technology (Ireland), Loughborough University (England), EPFL (Switzerland), Strathclyde University (Scotland) and Kobe University (Japan).

Congratulations to Sail Canada Sailor of the Month, Queen’s University Keelboat Team! Oil thigh na Banrighinn a’Banrighinn gu brath!
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Sail Canada’s Sailor of the Month award acknowledges sailing achievements by Canadians involved or associated with the sport in all its forms. Sail Canada encourages the submission of noteworthy Canadian sailing activities to sailorofthemonth@sailing.ca.