San Diego Yacht Club Wins Women’s Winter Invitational Regatta
San Diego Yacht Club has clinched the 2025 crown for the Women’s Winter Invitational Regatta, hosted by San Diego Yacht Club (SDYC) on Feb 14–16. The weekend festivities kicked off on the Friday with a lovely welcome reception, which gave competitors the opportunity to meet.
Saturday’s breeze kicked in after a short postponement, and the short racecourse was quickly established alongside the docks, with large inflatable windward and leeward pink flamingos for the 24 teams to sail around. Teams raced in fleets of four per race start; after each race, the teams rotated J/22s to keep the playing field fair.
Support crew helped with the quick turnaround on the dock, meaning that the race committee, led by PRO Becky Ashburn, was able to crank out 45 races with little delay on the first day of racing. The protest committee was kept busy with eight hearings, all administered by Kim Kymlicka with three-minute justice, so the sailors could make it back out onto the water for their next race. At the end of the first day, the flamingos had gained hats and leis, the mimosa bar had run dry, and the San Diego, Bristol, and New York teams led the fleet with the lowest average points. Saturday night’s competitors’ dinner gave teams a chance to unwind together with karaoke and dancing.
A longer shoreside postponement on the second race day meant that teams could continue to show off their karaoke skills and groan at commentator Craig Leweck’s knock-knock jokes. Luckily the wind turned on before he could dig too deeply into the dad-joke reserve. Despite a lighter forecast, Sunday brought shifty winds of 15–17 kts. 20 more races were completed in the opening series, and then the top 12 competitors were split into gold/silver fleets for a three-race Finals.
The spectator section grew, with the bottom 12 teams remaining on the docks with a perfect view of the racecourse. They cheered as Santa Barbara Yacht Club, which entered the Petite Finals in last position, won the first two races. Undeterred by their trimmer’s accidental dip in the bay the previous day, or by their carryover points from the opening series, they came out on top in the Silver Fleet.
SDYC led the Gold fleet with only 0.5 carryover points, but California and New York Yacht Clubs, both previous winners of this event, were right on their heels. Each race in the gold round was won by a different team. SDYC was over early in race 2 but finished the race in fifth, and fought their way to a second place in the other two races.
The final race began with just 1 point separating the top three teams. After battling the wind shifts across the course, Cal crossed the line in first, but SDYC was still half a point ahead and claimed the overall win. This is the first time the home team has won the regatta, and the girls celebrated by jumping into the water just off the race docks.
SDYC’s skipper, Rebecca McElvain, was excited to be back in La Playa Basin, sailing around her old stomping grounds. Rebecca, Julie Mitchell and Erika Barth are no strangers to this course and were the champions of the Women’s Winter Preview in January, winning them the opportunity to represent SDYC in this weekend’s Invitational. Rebecca grew up on these waters and always appreciates the sunny winter sailing — something the East Coast teams definitely don’t get this time of year. Competitors from Annapolis Yacht Club shared stories of sailing in the snow, breaking icicles from the boom, and trying to defrost the sheets before tacking.
See the regatta results here.