Offshore sailing finishes 4th at Kennedy Cup

Mass Maritime beat the Keelhaulers on a tie break for third on the final day. The team made history with Emi Stephanoff as its helmsman becoming the first woman in the role at the Kennedy Cup.

Two races were held for the Kennedy Cup in Annapolis today aboard the Naval Academy's fleet of 44 sloops. While the wind forecast for the day was not promising, the race crew clung to hope that the variable southerly would stabilize sufficiently to get a race or two in.

After an initial postponement, they started the first race only to abandon after a 60-degree left shift came in halfway up the first leg. The fleet returned to the start area and waited as the new breeze tried to settle from the south at around five knots.

Once it became reasonable, the race was restarted with Charleston winning the pin and favored left side followed closely by URI. Cal Maritime took third but suffered a four-point flag penalty for improperly reporting their rules infraction.

For race two the current was ebbing upwind, but the fleet got off the line clean. This time Mass Maritime jumped out front while Charleston rounded the first mark last.

Mass continued to extend and ran away with the race while Charleston sailed magnificently to get back to second. The Keelhaulers who were also deep early, made a nice comeback to take third.

Day two provided picture-perfect conditions for college big boat racing as the predicted breeze filled in right on schedule. Race officials elected to start the day an hour early in order to make up for being able to run only two races in day-one's light winds.

The wind started out in the high 200s favoring course left on most legs. Most teams managed to find their way there and cash in, but it was quite difficult to do so with consistency. Coast Guard posted the best score line for the day with a 5, 1, 2, 3 to move up to 2nd place while Mass and Cal Maritime stumbled at times and lost valuable points.

Navy finally found their stride posting a 3, 1 to close out the regatta moving them from the cellar up to 6th, just four points off the podium.

Race winner's College of Charleston Cougars sailed strong with a worst score being a six which included a two-point flag penalty, to win the regatta by seven points clear of second place Coast Guard.