Corinthian Yacht Club successfully defends Resolute Cup title
by Michelle Slade, New York Yacht Club 14 Sep 17:44 PDT
September 9-14, 2024
Resolute Cup Title © Paul Todd / Outside Images
A command performance by Corinthian Yacht Club of Marblehead, Mass., saw the well-honed team skippered by Wade Waddell take its second consecutive victory in the prestigious Resolute Cup, thus securing the venerable club a berth in the 2025 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup.
This year's edition of the Resolute Cup showcased teams representing 28 yacht clubs from around the country who fielded their best sailors to compete. Twenty races were sailed over four days in the Opening Series, with the top 14 boats advancing to a two-race Medal Series on the final afternoon when scores were doubled for each race, intensifying an already stiff competition.
Waddell, 27, and his team of Doug Sabin, Duncan Swain, and Miranda Bakos, finished 18 of 20 races sailed in the Opening Series inside of the top five and won the regatta by sixteen points.
New York Yacht Club, skippered by Peter Levesque, finished second, and Mystic River Mudheads Sailing Association, skippered by Peter Linn, took third, winning a tiebreaker with Eastern Yacht Club, which scored fourth in a repeat of its 2022 result. An impressive showing by Detroit's Bayview Yacht Club rounded out the top five.
"Winning a second time feels amazing!" says Waddell. "It's never been done before; no other club has won twice so we are happy to be the first ones to do it. I am sure everyone at home is thrilled."
Since 2010, the Resolute Cup has served as a Corinthian Championship for U.S. Yacht Clubs and the only guaranteed pathway for an American club to earn a berth in the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup, Corinthian sailing's most prestigious international competition. The seventh edition of the biennial competition—the event was not sailed in 2020—is scheduled for September 9 to 14 at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court in Newport, R.I. The 2024 Resolute Cup will utilize the Club's fleet of Sonars, with provided sails, equalized rig tune and on-the-water umpiring ensuring sailing's ultimate level playing field. The 2024 New York Yacht Club Regatta Association regatta calendar is supported by Helly Hansen, Hammetts Hotel, Safe Harbor Marinas and Peters & May.
The results are here.
The complete crew list can be found here.
Waddell credits his hugely successful Northeastern team for their epic repeat performance.
"We all did this two years ago with exactly the same team," says Waddell. "Our main trimmer, Doug is CYC's Rear Commodore and a Sonar world champion. He really gets the boat going fast around the course all the time. Duncan does bow and trims jib for us and he brings a great energy to the boat. Miranda has won almost every regatta she has ever tried to win, she's extremely good and a constant on the boat; she keeps the three guys in line and focused. We have a tremendous amount of trust in each other."
No longer a Resolute Cup rookie, Waddell knew coming in that he'd be up against a spectacularly competitive fleet; from the outset, the focus was on keeping their scores low.
"We knew it was going to be a super deep fleet," says Waddell. "Sonars are pretty even boats and everyone here is very good at sailing. We knew it was going to be tight racing. We reviewed results from 2018, which was a similar format to this year and saw that the winners averaged about a six, so we had that number in the back of our heads of what we were trying to average out over the course of the regatta. I think we did better than that. Friday was our best and most fun day, we were consistent all day and when the breeze came up a little bit, our team was just super dialed, we were in the groove, super-fast, and were able to get a lot of really good scores; it just all came together."
Following the conclusion of the Opening Series on Saturday, the Medal Series fleet endured a long wait for a marginal breeze to eventuate, causing the Corinthian Yacht Club team just a little anxiety. But at the end of the day, Waddell and his formidable crew had the event wrapped up.
"The conditions were pretty sketchy—puffy and shifty—which made it unclear what side was going to be favored so that certainly made it tight," says Waddell. "We waited for a few hours for the medal races to start which made me anxious. Going into the last medal race we were 26 points up on New York so they would have had to win, and we would have had to get last in order to not win the regatta. Our strategy was, 'Hey, we just need to beat one boat. Let's start in the middle, have a conservative start and just play the fleet.'"
Waddell is already looking out to next year's Invitational Cup; after taking second in 2023, the Corinthian team is going to be a force to be reckoned with in 2025.
"This is the first checkmark to get into the Invitational, and now we have our eyes set on climbing to the top of the mountain at that regatta and getting back there to have a strong finish—we have an amazing team to accomplish that," says Waddell. "We have great teammates back home at the Corinthian Yacht Club who support us, it's really a fantastic family culture, we encourage each other, push each other hard at practice, and it pays off at these regattas."
A notoriously challenging event for newcomers given the high premium on talent, Charleston Yacht Club put on a convincing performance at their first Resolute Cup to finish 11th overall. Three of the team—David Dabney, Joe Pitcavage and John Colarusso—sailed together on the College of Charleston sailing team, while Megan Riddle-Tracy was on the College of Charleston team in later years. With no experience racing together in Newport and little in the Sonar, the team's strategy coming into the event was to observe the old guard.
"We watched closely the people who sail these boats often to try to figure out little tips, how to make them go fast, how to stay in clean air and keep the boat going fast, that was our plan," says Dabney. "It's been top competition; at the top weather mark a boat length and a half is the difference between top five and bottom five, so tough racing, but a lot of fun. Next time we'll feel more confident knowing the racecourses, the tide and current, it would be nice to have more inside information on that, but it wasn't a factor holding us back—we had plenty of other things holding us back!"
The Corinthian Spirit Award presented by Helly Hansen goes to the team that exhibits the best Corinthian spirit both on and off the water, as voted by all competitors as well as the Organizing Authority. This year it was awarded to Little Traverse Yacht Club, skippered by veteran Scott Sellers.
"This is my third time doing this regatta, I haven't done it in 10 years but I had the opportunity this year between work and family to pull it off so I'm really grateful to be here, I couldn't turn it down," says Sellers. "Sailing out of Harbour Court with this level of competition is a special experience. I like racing the Sonar, they're equal so it makes for great tight racing, and the New York Yacht Club does a first-class job of throwing good events. It's so great to see so many old friends and to meet a lot of new friends. NYYC does a great job of making it happen."