Newport Harbor Sailing Foundation: Sailor Stories

Marley Mais at the US Women’s Match Race Championships

Results

This year’s US Women’s Match Race Championships, held in Chicago, showed not only the range of Lake Michigan’s conditions, but the depth of the current women’s match racing fleet. Over three days of varying conditions, 10 teams comprised of 4 sailors fought for the Allegra Knapp Mertz Trophy.

My team was comprised of skipper Bridget Groble, whom I had competed against throughout high school and college, and two other members of her usual team “Bow Down Racing”, Sam Foulston and Morgan Collins. On the Sonar I had the job of jib and spinnaker trimmer, and although forming the team two weeks before the regatta, we performed incredibly well. After winning the first day’s round robin in windy conditions, we then proceeded to the second day’s knockout round, where we won 3 consecutive races in light and shifting conditions to then enter the last day’s semifinals in 1st.

The last day of racing was set in 90° weather with incredibly wavy and shifting conditions. In the semi-finals we faced another college sailing peer, Lindsey Baab. In the 5-race series, we ended with a record of 2 wins to her 3, and each race was a fight to the finish. We then proceeded to race in the petit finals against my former college sailing coach Janel Martin née

Zarkowsky. In this series we sailed all three races but lost with a 1-2 record. Again, this series of racing was incredibly close, and showed how tight the competition was among the top four teams.

We did end the regatta in fourth but felt that we had left everything we could on the water, the deciding moments of each race had come down to a matter of inches. I walked away from the regatta knowing that I had just gained a future team of great sailors, and that we would be back in the next series of match race regattas with new skills and lessons we had learned at this one.

Congratulations to Allie Blecher and her team, who are now back to back winners of this regatta. Huge thank you to Chicago Yacht Club and their team of race committee, support boats and umpires.

I would like to end this by stating how incredible it was to be at a regatta and have so many women sailors and alumni from Georgetown University representing across many of the boats. There were 8 of us competing on 5 different teams, which I know reflects the hard work coaches like Janel have put in to make the future of women’s sailing even more competitive and successful.

Women’s Match Race Championship
Chicago, IL

Women’s Match Race Championship
Chicago, IL

Women’s Match Race Championship
Chicago, IL