Five Bermudians Compete In 2011 Mallory Cup
Antilles High School of St Thomas, USVI won the 2011 Mallory Trophy, the US high school national fleet racing championship this past weekend.
Frequent Bermuda training partner and Youth Olympic gold medalist, Ian Barrows, gave Antilles HS the advantage carding twelve top 3 finishes in the “B” division. Hosted by Austin Yacht Club on May 7-8, twenty teams competed in FJ dinghies on Lake Travis, with both “A” and “B” teams completing 19 races.
5 Bermudians representing 3 schools were active at the regatta. Brewster Academy (Wolfeboro, NH) had “A” division skipper Kelsey Durham and “B” Division skipper Ryan Powell representing the New England division along with Mackenzie Cooper from Tabor Academy (Marion, MA) who shared “B” boat helming responsibilities with his team co-captain Chris Aiken.
Brothers Blake and Kyle Burgess each helmed the “A” and “B” boats from Christchurch School (Christchurch, VA) having earned their ticket to the regatta by winning the mid Atlantic region (MASSA) fleet championships. Both Brewster
and Christchurch had never qualified for the Mallory Championships prior to having Bermudians enrolled at their school. Christchurch was 12th overall in the regatta with 399 points while Tabor was close behind in 13th place with 402 points. Brewster finished 19th in the contest with 608 points.
All five sailors got their start racing with the Bermuda Optimist Dinghy Association. This coming weekend, the New England region (NESSA) will be holding their high school team racing championships which will again include a number of Bermudians. The regatta for the Mark Trophy will be held on Mendums Lake at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH. The top two teams will qualify for the team race national championships later in the month in Norfolk, Virginia.
