St. Francis Yacht Club repeats as Women's 2v2 Team Race Champs
by New York Yacht Club 19 May 02:54 BST
May 17-18, 2025
2025 Women's 2v2 Team Race © Stuart Streuli / New York Yacht Club
Being the captain for competitive adult team sport is often a thankless task involving a lot of emails, texts and phone calls to coordinate a group of busy people with multiple conflicting priorities. For St. Francis Yacht Club Team Captain Kate Shiber, however, filling out her squad for the New York Yacht Club's Women's 2v2 Team Race was a simple process.
"The sailors from last year all wanted to do it again," said Shiber (at left, with skipper Lindsey Baab), at the awards ceremony on a sun-splashed afternoon overlooking Newport Harbor. "So we just brought the same team. The job was pretty easy."
Easy and successful. With a consistent performance across a range of conditions, the St. Francis Team won the fifth edition of the New York Yacht Club's Women's 2v2 Team Race, successfully defending the title it won last year. Runner-up was Eastport Yacht Club, the third straight year a Chesapeake Bay team has finished second. New York Yacht Club Maxwell, one of two teams representing the host club, took the final podium spot.
"Each [St. Francis] crew had sailed together, but the 2024 Women's 2v2 was the first time we sailed together in the 2v2 format," said Shiber. "We definitely learned a lot about how to work together, and then we practiced a bunch and had even better chemistry this year."
The Women's 2v2 Team Race is one of four highly regarded team race regattas hosted each summer by the New York Yacht Club. The event annually attracts top female sailors from across the country. The inaugural event was won by the host club, with Lauderdale Yacht Club winning in 2022, Bristol Yacht Club winning in 2023 and St. Francis Yacht Club taking the title in 2024. As with the other three established regattas, the Morgan, Hinman and Grandmasters—and the new Great Grandmasters, which will debut this August—the Women's 2v2 utilizes the Club's fleet of 22 identical Sonar sailboats. For more on team racing at the New York Yacht Club, click here.
After enduring a cold and blustery regatta in 2024, the competitors in the 2025 Women's 2v2 enjoyed a seasonably warm weekend despite some fog and overcast skies on Saturday and patchy clouds on Sunday. The inconsistent wind—both in terms of velocity and direction—made the race committee led by Liz Isdale work extra hard to get in 81 races, just nine shy of two full rotations. It also kept the competitors on their toes with no race totally out of reach and many coming down to a fierce battle on the final run.
"Today, the course was really short, so it was hard to extend," said Shiber. "On the downwinds, even if you're the one-two, you were never safe. There was a ton of pressure, and you had to be super high on the downwinds to keep your air clear. I thought today was much tighter than yesterday."
The combination of spinnakers, a gusty wind and the aggressive maneuvering that is required to be successful in the 2v2 format means that boat handling is at a premium. Shiber said that this is where the regular practice paid off most.
"We practice on Saturday and Sunday mornings against the best male and female team racers at St Francis," said Shiber. "Lindsey, Elena [Vanderberg] and Helen [Lord] and I sail together a lot, and so does the group on the other boat. Whatever move Lindsey wants to pull, we're confident in our execution. I think that really helps in those tight moments. If you can pull off a move and the other boat can't, then you just can have a lot more confidence."
The Women's 2v2 officially opens the 2025 team racing season in Newport. The revived Team Racing World Championship, with 10 countries participating, will start in less than two weeks at Harbour Court. In August, the New York Yacht Club will host the Morgan, Hinman and Grandmasters events. Finally, the Club will debut the Great Grandmasters Team Race on August 21 and 22, another indication of the continuing growth of this dynamic niche of the sport.
Overall Results - 2025 Women's 2v2 Team Race:
1. St. Francis Yacht Club, San Francisco, Calif. 14 wins, 2 losses
2. Eastport (Md.) Yacht Club, 12-4
3. New York (N.Y.) Yacht Club Maxwell, 11-5
4. Newport Harbor Yacht Club, Newport Beach, Calif. 10-6;
5. New York (N.Y.) Yacht Club Reynolds, 10-7
6. College of Charleston (S.C.), 8-8
7. Corinthian Yacht Club, Marblehead, Mass., 5-11
8. Ida Lewis Yacht Club, Newport, R.I., 5-11
9. Chicago (Ill.) Yacht Club, 5-11
10. Eastern Yacht Club, Marblehead, Mass.1-16.
Click here for race-by-race results & complete matrix.