MARBLEHEAD, MA - 6/19/2011 - Sailors enjoyed near perfect sailing conditions at the this year's Marblehead Team Race this past weekend.  The regatta was sailed in Vanguard 15s - a two person planing dinghy that is the preferred team racing dinghy around the country.  EYC launched the now annual event just last summer and already it has nearly tripled in size, growing from four teams in 2010 to eleven this year.  This year's field featured some of the top team racing talent in the country, including one reigning team race world champion, a reigning high school national team racing champion, former collegiate national team racing champions, and several current and former collegiate All Americans.

The regatta format was ambitious and included two round robins among all eleven teams, followed by a third round robin for the top six teams, as well as a consolation round to determine 7th through 11th place.  After 135 races had been sailed, it was one of two Eastern YC teams that came out on top, winning the event with a perfect 25-0 win/loss record.  Click here for full results.  Photos of the event are available here.

This year's event was spectator-friendly thanks to the Rhode Island Team Race Association who loaned ten sets of colored jibs to designate the teams on the water. 

EYC runs a weekly team race series in Vanguard 15s on Wednesday nights.  With a popular annual dinghy team racing regatta, a weekly dinghy team race series, the well established Thursday night Harbor Challenge Sonar Team Racing, the Jackson Cup at BYC in the spring and EYC's Halloween Team Race in the fall, Marblehead and the EYC are gaining repuations as an emerging center of team racing and an attractive place for college students and graduates to continue their sailing. 

For more information on 3-on-3 team racing, including an explanation of one of the "moves" in the above video, click here.