The 18th-20th April saw a Royal Thames team race for the Baldwin Cup, hosted by Newport Harbor Yacht Club.
This is an event the Thames have sent a team to for many years, however the 2024 edition saw a change in format from 4v4 team racing to 2v2 team racing. This change in format allowed a full 20 teams to enter, so we knew competition would be fierce for the 8 quarter final slots. The event is held in Harbor 20s, a bespoke class designed by the members with a large mainsail and self tacking jib. The races are held just off the club house with commentary and a DJ making for excellent viewing for both those on the dock and the livestream drone coverage.
On arrival at the club on day 1 we were greeted with fantastic hospitality but a distinct lack of wind. The locals seemed completely unfazed and, sure enough, by the time of the first warning signal at 10:30am the clouds had lifted and the breeze filled in. While our first two races were close, the Newport Harbor 20s took a little getting used to and resulted in losses to Yale and Seawanhaka. We took three wins from our remaining five races that day, including beating the team from the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club to secure out position as top Royals overnight! Having only won 3/7 on the first day we knew we needed a good second day to stay within reach of a spot in the quarterfinals. Fuelled by the California staple of the breakfast burrito we won our first four races of the day to move up to 7th overall on the leaderboard. The swiss league format then seeded us some tricky races. After losing to St Francis Blue (eventual finalists) we raced the NHYC team that had at that point only dropped a single race. After a good battle around the course they eventually slipped out of reach when our race became tangled up with a different race happening on the course.
Next up was a battle of the Brits against a West Kirby team (including RTYC member Andy Cornah). This was one of the best races of the day, with neither team gaining a definitive upper hand the entire way around the "digital M" course. All boats ended up beyond the pin end of the downwind finish, with boats from both teams preventing a member of the opposition finishing (in 2v2 if you have the last boat to finish, you lose).
In a chaotic sequence of events it appeared the stalemate had broken and that RTYC had managed to scrape over the line in 2nd and 3rd to win the race - unfortunately in doing so the umpires deemed we had infringed a West Kirby boat, and the penalty after the finish lost us the race.
Our final race was a win against Corinthian Yacht club to end the day on 8/15, in 10th overall. The final day began with a postponement whilst we waited for wind. With time running out we knew we needed to win to climb the crucial two places into the knockouts. Our first race was a vital win over eventual semi-finalists San Diego. This put us into 8th overall. The race committee announced there would be one more race. We were drawn to race Annapolis who were at that point 9th. The winner would advance to the quarter finals. Unfortunately, despite some great racing Annapolis managed to win and we finished the event in 9th overall. Making the quarter finals were two Newport Harbor Yacht Club teams, two St Francis Yacht Club teams, two San Diego teams, West Kirby and Annapolis.
As the 12 teams missing the knockouts watched a fantastic display of team racing, Newport Harbor won the trophy for the 6th time in the last 7 editions. St Francis Yacht Club came second and West Kirby Sailing Club won the petit final to come third.
A huge thank you to Newport Harbor for their fantastic hospitality and a brilliant event. After coming tantalising close to the top eight this year, motivation is high to come back and go better next time. This year's team was valiantly captained by Tim Gratton, crewed for by Bethan Matthew with Robbie King helming the other boat, crewed for by Jamie Webb.