This past weekend, Friday, June 11th through Sunday, June 13th, we, in partnership with the Stonington Harbor Yacht Club Sailing Foundation, organized and hosted the 2010 470 National Championship. It was truly a national representation of the US 470 fleet! Twelve teams competed from all around the country: three teams came from St. Petersburg, FL; two teams came from Connecticut, Illinois and Wisconsin; and three teams came from Canada. The event included a two-day warm-up regatta on Saturday and Sunday, June 5-6, and a three day training camp during the week with Coach Skip Whyte.

The SHYC SF ran a very successful event, thanks to the volunteer race committee led by Tucker Bragdon, and the outstanding scoring and shore crew led by Cindy Nickerson. The 470 fleet raced in thirteen races over the course of three days. Despite the fact that the races were light, the race committee was able to get in a large number of good races.

The Manton Davis Scott Memorial Trophy for the winner of the U.S. 470 National Championship was awarded to Brendan Kopp and Michael Costello, of Pequot Yacht Club, CT, who won the event with a total of eighteen points. The trophy is given “in fond memory of an outstanding sailor and fine person,” and was first awarded in 1973. Manton Scott passed away on May 6, 1973, when the mast of his 470, a shroud of which he was holding, came in contact with a high tension wire that was strung over a boat storage area in Duxbury, MA. At the time, Manton Scott was on-leave from his junior year at Tufts. Manton Scott was raised in Darien, CT, and raced in the junior sailing program at Noroton Yact Club, skippering to win the 1969 Sears Cup. He is remembered as a modest, almost self-effacing young man who was always eager to share information with competitors. He showed a quick and incisive mine whenever small-boat racing was discussed. Some of the previous names on the trophy include renown sailors Steve Benjamin, Kevin Burnham, Neil Fowler, Allison Jolly, Morgan Reeser, and Dave Ullman, among others.

Kopp and Costello are currently campaigning 470’s around their academic schedules, with their eyes set on the 2012 and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Kopp is a rising junior at Harvard College, and Costello will be starting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, in the fall.

The Canadian team of Andrew McCorquodale and Oliver Bone placed second with twenty-four points. Andrew Sumpton and Daniel Goldman, of St. Petersburg, FL, placed third with forty-two points. 2008 World Champions Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving Farrar placed fourth, despite missing all five races on Friday. The team won six of the eight races that they sailed, but this was not enough to get them onto the podium.

Complete scores are pasted below and can be seen at: www.shyc-sf.org