New York Yacht Club wins third consecutive Hinman Masters Trophy

Twenty-five short-course races in three days in winds that rarely topped 10 knots are more than enough to fray the nerves of the most experienced and tranquil sailor. But when it came down to brass tacks on the final day of the Hinman Masters Team Race, held this past weekend at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court in Newport, R.I., the key was to forget what was on the line and all the hard work required to get to that point and stay calm.

“When you're thinking about that kind of a situation, where everybody's finishing at the same time in an important race, you're really trying to relax and just make your boat stay in the right spot, be legal, not foul, and get across the line in front of the competition,” says Brian Doyle (above, center), who led the host New York Yacht Club to its third consecutive win. “When it's that close, and everyone's shooting the line, you never know how the results are going to come out. But we came out on top by inches.”

The race Doyle references was sailed earlier today between Southern Yacht Club and New York Yacht Club. After three grueling round robins among all eight teams and going into a mini round robin among the top four teams, Southern and New York were tied at the sharp end of the leaderboard with 17 points apiece. In this race, the advantage repeatedly shifted between the two teams. As all six boats approached the finish line, it was impossible to tell which team had the edge. The race turned on the battle for fifth place, which was ultimately decided within feet of the finish line. While each team still had two races remaining, the odds for the overall win had tipped decidedly in favor of the New York Yacht Club, which secured the victory by splitting its final two races. Southern Yacht Club finished second—on the podium for the fifth straight year. Eastport Yacht Club took third and Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club finished fourth.

The New York Yacht Club helped usher in a new era of adult team racing with the creation of the New York Yacht Club Invitational Team Race Regatta for the Commodore George R. Hinman Masters Trophy in 2000. That race, which requires skippers to be at least 45 years of age and crew to be over 40, was soon followed by the New York Yacht Club Invitational Team Race Regatta for the Morgan Cup, an all-ages event, in 2003 and, in 2010, the New York Yacht Club Grandmasters Team Race Regatta, which mandates skippers be at least 60 years of age and crew at least 50. The three team races are traditionally held over consecutive weekends in August at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court, using the Club's fleet of 22 Sonar keelboats, and annually attract some of the best adult team racers in the United States and Europe. New York Yacht Club Regatta Association sponsors for 2024 include Helly Hansen, Peters & May, Hammetts Hotel and Safe Harbor Marinas.

To a spectator, team racing can seem loud and contentious, which is at least partially due to the quantity of starts, mark roundings and finishes that go into an average day. There's simply a lot more racing, in tight quarters, on short courses, than in a typical fleet-race regatta. For the victorious New York Yacht Club team, however, the key to success lay in familiarity and quiet.

"Our team's been sailing together for several years, and we work really well together," says Doyle. "We know what each other's going to do. There's not a lot of conversation between boats or even on the boats. We're just boathandling well and consistently making moves to move up our teammates. And with that kind of teamwork, it works out well in the end."

Of the 13 sailors who raced on Doyle's squad this year, six raced together in the previous three editions of the Hinman Masters while another three sailed two of the previous three years. That experience and trust was essential for a regatta with predominantly light and variable winds.

"No win was ever secure, because as soon as you turned downwind, anything could happen," says Doyle. "[On the final day] we had the wind coming over Goat Island, which made it even more tenuous, puffy and shifty all the way down the run. It didn't matter if you were 1-2-3 [at the top mark], you could get overtaken."

With the win, its ninth in the 25-year-history of the regatta, the New York Yacht Club widened its commanding lead in the overall win column. Southern stands second, with four. But the competition this year was as close as ever, a testament to the continued interest in this discipline and the growing collective skill level of the competitors.

Adult team racing, though 25 years of the Hinman Masters, has grown substantially," says Doyle. "It's really exciting. There's more and more clubs now with fleets of boats, particularly Sonars, which is great, because they maneuver well and they're great for team racing. We just heard that some more yacht clubs are purchasing fleets this year, so adult team racing is going to continue to grow."

The New York Yacht Club's 2024 team racing schedule will conclude with the New York Yacht Club Grandmasters Team Race, which starts on Friday, August 23, and runs through Sunday. Ten teams are scheduled to participate in this event, which mandates that skippers be at least 60 years of age and crew 50 or older.

Winning New York Yacht Club team, above with former Commodore George R. Hinman Jr. (left) and Vice Commodore Clare G. Harrington (right): Brian Doyle (skipper & team captain), Whitney Rugg, Hannah Swett, Shane Wells, Steve Kirkpatrick (skipper), Alice Leonard, Zachary Leonard, Whitney Peterson, Jane Kirkpatrick, Chris McDowell (skipper), Libby Toppa, Brett Davis and Sam Septembre.