Five-peat for San Diego at Lipton Cup

The 110th Challenge for the Sir Thomas Lipton Cup came down to the final race when San Diego Yacht Club topped 11 yacht club teams to take the title for the fifth consecutive time. Racing for the 2025 edition was October 24-26 in San Diego, CA.

The regatta is structured in a round robin format where each team sails one race on each of the twelve donated J/105s, switching between races from a temporary floating dock near the finish.

“While a large team of experienced sailors/volunteers work really hard to clean, strip, and tune all the borrowed boats to perform equally with a suit of club owned sails used just for this event, there are still some ‘differences’ between the boats,” noted Waterfront Director Jeff Johnson.

“There are also differences between tiller-steer and wheel-steer boats, and some mild rigging differences. Those factors are why we built and maintain a 210’ temp dock and fender system that can support a boat rotation format. I think the participating teams would agree that rotating boats is a key strategic element of this event.”

The wind forecast going into the event was initially predicted to be on the lighter side, but the South Bay venue delivered enough wind for the complete circuit of 12 races over the course of three days.

SDYC’s win streak has followed Newport Harbor Yacht Club ’s victory in 2019, and the two clubs separated themselves from the 2025 fleet. Tied after day one, with Newport up one point after day two, three races remained on day three. Despite a two point lead going into the final race, a 10th by NHYC gave the title away when SDYC finished 5th.

“At the beginning of the final day, we had a little bit of a lead on the fleet other than Newport Harbor,” explained SDYC skipper Jake La Dow. “And so our eyes were set on them. We didn’t necessarily want to engage them aggressively in the start, but we wanted to keep aware of them on the race course.

“We found ourselves both towards the back of the pack in race one and we ended up putting a couple of points on them. Both of us finishing deep opened up the field for Coronado in New York to be more in the mix, which wasn’t part of the plan.

“Race two, we didn’t quite get off the line very well, and we lost a little bit of that lead, but were still in the fight. In race three we had a good start, just enough to be ahead of Newport early in the race. And we got into a controlling position and it was close the whole way, but we were just able to stay in front and control the rest of the race. It was very close and Newport Harbor did extremely well.”

La Dow’s team had Nevin Snow, Chuck Eaton, Erik Shampain, Max Hutcheson, Lucy Wallace, and Jake Reynolds.

While they missed the win this year, NHYC Skipper Justin Law considers the Lipton Cup as one of the best events a sailor can do all year. “We always look forward to coming back. A huge shout-out to my team. We’re always trying to push the limits. I think we accomplished making San Diego nervous, which is always my goal.”

Event details – Results – Photos

Source: SDYC