Sunday, August 17

After three beautiful days of sailing, the race committee successfully completed 190 team races to crown the New York Yacht Club Silver Panda team as the 2008 U.S. Team Racing Champion.  The third and final day of the U.S. Team Racing Championship at the Erie Yacht Club in Erie, Pennsylvania stated off promptly at 10:00 with sunshine and 12-16 knots of wind out of the west.   As planned, Sunday morning progressed with seventeen teams completing the third and final elimination round which resulted in the following eight teams moving onto the quarter finals New York Yacht Club Silver Panda, Woonsocket Rockets, TAP N' GO, Tannery Loungers, Larchmont YC, Meerkat Mayhem, West Kirby Hawks, and SoCal Seis Amigos.  The crowd and excitement was building as the semi-final action was beginning to heat up!  After 177 races, the following teams had the honor of racing in the semi-final team racing matches: New York Yacht Club Silver Panda, Woonsocket Rockets, TAP N' GO, Tannery Loungers, and the West Kirby Hawks. At the conclusion of the semi-finals, the New York Yacht Club Silver Panda and the West Kirby Hawks had the distinguished honor of moving on to the U.S. Team Racing Championship Final which was a best of five races gun slinging showdown.  The match-up for third and fourth place was between Tannery Loungers and Tap N’ Go.  The Tannery Loungers earned the third place victory after betting the Tap N’ Go team in 3 to 1 in a best out of five racing format.

The U.S. Team Racing Championship concluded with the New York Yacht Club Silver Panda team claiming victory.  In the final matchup, the New York Yacht Club Silver Panda quickly executed their strategy, tactics and finesse to sweep the West Kirby Hawks in three straight race wins.  30 matches later it was obvious that no other team at this years team racing event could match the intensity of the New Your Yacht Club Silver Panda team.  Looking at the facts, you will see that Silver Panda dominated this years 2008 U.S. Team Racing Championship.  Round 1 – Silver Panda sweep their matches with 5 wins and 0 losses.   Round 2 was a little more of a challenge for them – resulting in 7 wins and 1 loss.    Round 3 had the same winning results as round 2 – 7 wins and 1 loss.  Silver Panda then moved on to win the quarter finals with 2 wins and 0 losses.  The semi finals was also an easy sweep for this powerhouse team with 3 wins and 0 losses.   No reason to slowdown the domination now, The New York Yacht Club Silver Panda wrapped up the 2008 championship event in the finals with 3 wins and 0 losses.   All said and done at the end of the three day competition, the New York Yacht Club Silver Panda team raced 22 matches and lost only two of the matches.  Congratulations Peter Levesque, Elizabeth Hall, Clay Bischoff, Lisa Keith, Colin Merrick and Amanda Callahan to a championship well sailed, good luck at Worlds in Perth, Australia.

Final results are as follows:

New York Yacht Club Silver Panda, 1^st Place

West Kirby Hawks, 2^nd Place    (United Kingdom, GBR)

Long Island Tannery Loungers, 3^rd Place

California Tap N’ Go, 4^th Place

The New York Yacht Club Silver Panda and Long Island Tannery Loungers will have the honor or representing the United States in the Team Racing World Championship in Perth, Australia in January of 2009.

During the 2008 U.S. Team Racing Championship, Joel Hanneman received the prestigious Gay Lynn Team Racing Leadership Recognition Award to recognize Joel’s commitment and dedication to the sport of team racing in the United States.