San Diego Rips Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
“We’ve seen this movie before.”
That thought had to be running through the minds of the nine sailors on the San Diego Yacht Club team—and their fan base watching the live broadcast back at home—as they found themselves in the blender at the top of the first beat of the deciding race of the 2025 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup. In 2019, the team’s first bid to win this prestigious Corinthian competition came undone when they missed the lay line for the second windward mark in Race 10. Was it about to happen again?
“We had an unexpected crash tack come at us, which forced us into that low lane,” said tactician Adam Roberts, who was also the team’s shot-caller in 2019. “By the time we were trying to come back, everybody was stacked up on the lay line and there was no where to go. We ended up ducking everybody. It was a definite down moment.”
TracTrac’s race tracker had San Diego in seventh as they approached the mark. The team rounded in 17th, well behind Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, the two teams that were mathematically alive for the championship.
Over the course of the next three legs, the virtual lead in the regatta pinballed between the three clubs. Royal Hong Kong made its move with a jibe set at the first mark. Royal Vancouver was more methodical, grinding down the boats in front of them. As the fleet approached the second leeward mark, with just one beat remaining in the regatta, Royal Hong Kong was fourth, Royal Vancouver was seventh and San Diego sat 13th. The race for the championship was a virtual 3-way tie.
Twenty teams from 12 countries will compete in the ninth Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup, a biennial regatta hosted by the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court in Newport, R.I. Since the event was first run in 2009, it has attracted top amateur sailors from 52 of the world’s most prestigious yacht clubs from 23 countries.
After five editions in the Swan 42 class, the 2025 event will be the fourth sailed in the IC37, designed by Mark Mills. The strict one-design nature of this purpose-built class, combined with the fact that each boat is owned and maintained by the New York Yacht Club, ensures a level playing field not seen in any other amateur big-boat sailing competition. The regatta will run from Saturday, September 6, through Saturday, September 13, with racing starting on Tuesday, September 9. A live broadcast on Facebook and YouTube, starting on Wednesday, September 10, will allow fellow club members, friends, family and sailing fans from around the world to follow the action as it happens. The 2025 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup is brought to you by title sponsor Rolex and regatta sponsors Helly Hansen, Safe Harbor Marinas and Peters & May.
It was a nearly perfect day on Narragansett Bay. The sun shone brightly throughout and the forecasted seabreeze arrived on schedule at 1 pm. For San Diego, mired in the cheap seats for much of the race, it must’ve seemed like a dark cloud was following them around the course. The sun broke through—proverbially, of course—at the final leeward gate. A boat that rounded just in front was flagged by the umpires, opening an exit lane. With Rick Merriman—a four-time champion in this event—locked in on the mainsheet and Roberts picking the shifts, skipper Jake La Dow guided his team from 15th to eighth in the space of one leg, pipping Royal Vancouver at the finish line to clinch the championship for a second time.
“It starts with that leeward mark rounding, for sure, and just making sure that you have a really clean exit,” said Roberts. “Luckily, we did. Then we had a quick tack, found our wheels, had clean air, even though we were in the back of the pack, and that’s what it takes. We found a nice righty at the top to take it into the finish.”
Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club was able to hold the fourth place they’d earned on the first downwind leg and when Royal Vancouver finished just a few feet behind San Diego and Royal Prince Alfred, it was Royal Hong Kong that moved into second in the final standings.
“We didn’t really hold our lane [off the start] and then we had to do two tacks to get to [the left] corner,” said Duncan Gregor, the 21-year-old tactician of Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. “We came in alright, a bit mid-fleety, and then worked from there. The jibe set was pretty strong, and we gained a lot from that.
“The pressure was pretty strong down that side, and we had to go aggressive. Ideally you do a straight set and early jibe, but we were a bit deeper, so we thought we’d just go for it.”
As was the case with the other two contending teams, the first beat didn’t go well for Royal Vancouver.
“The plan was to go left,” said Ben Mumford, the team’s skipper. “We all agreed. Normally it’s [tactician Hunter Lowden’s] call. It was a unanimous decision. It didn’t materialize, we struggled to get back into the fray. That was the tightest stadium-style racing that we’ve done.
“We were just trying to sail edgy enough that we didn’t throw it away, but pushing enough that we could stay in it, and it just didn’t translate. It just wasn’t our day. We passed San Diego twice, and it just didn’t materialize in the end. Hong Kong sailed an amazing series, and San Diego just crushed it, just top notch.”
Two years ago, sailing on the edge of a hurricane, San Diego won the final race and there was no doubt about who won the regatta. Today, it took a little more time for the realization to set in.
“It was one of those moments where we were waiting for a spectator boat to celebrate for us,” said Roberts. “We’re not math people, so we really wanted that validation, but we thought we had it.
“Then, once we got the thumps up, it was game on. It was relief, like just a huge weight off our shoulders. But also, extreme excitement. It’s such a difficult event. I feel like this was one of the strongest Invitational Cups ever. Everybody brought their A game, everybody prepared in these boats. And though we had a nice cushion in the middle of the regatta, we knew it was still going to be a grind to the end, and it certainly was.”
Rounding out the top five were Corinthian Yacht Club in fourth and Royal Cork Yacht Club, the only foreign club to have attended all nine editions, in fifth. New York Yacht Club didn’t have the regatta it hoped for, finishing ninth, but ended on a strong note winning the final race by a wide margin.
San Diego Yacht Club team: Jake La Dow, skipper, Adam Roberts, tactician, Rick Merriman, Anderson Reiter, Nick Martin, Kara Voss, Lucy Wallace, Max Hutcheson, David Dempsey.
Overall Results:
