ANOTHER 2-FOR-1 MATCH RACING WEEKEND IN CHICAGO
7/15/2010

CMRC Summer Classic A & B regattas get back-to-back start tomorrow with ISAF Grade 3 match race action off the Belmont Harbor waterfront

Chicago, IL – This weekend the Chicago Match Race Center (CMRC) is repeating last month’s long weekend of match race sailing with tomorrow’s start of the two-day CMRC Summer Classic A regatta, followed on Sunday with the two-day CMRC Summer Classic B regatta. Both events feature nine men’s and women’s teams from throughout the US and the US and British Virgin Islands, and will be given ISAF Grade 3 status in points earned towards the ISAF World Match Race Ranking List.

Leading the pack in the Summer Classic A regatta will be St Thomas, USVI-native Taylor Canfield, who won the Chicago Open A event last month and is the defending champion of this event last year. These and other victories have earned him the 36th position on the current ISAF World ranking list, so he and his team would be considered strong contenders for this weekend’s events. Hailing from next door in the British Virgin Islands, Colin Rathbun comes to his first CMRC event relatively new to the game, but with good results from two Caribbean events.

Reigning US Match Race champion and CMRC Director Bill Hardesty from San Diego will be in the field skippering his own entry rather than crewing for CMRC founder Don Wilson. Hardesty should be warmed up well from having helped fellow San Diegan Steve Hunt conduct the CMRC’s Advanced Match Race Clinic, on its final day today of three days of instruction in regatta-winning communication techniques, as well as advanced skills in timing, tactics, rules and penalties.

US Women’s Olympian Sally Barkow from Nashotah, WI will skipper her first CMRC event of the season after having crewed for David Storrs in the CMRC’s Open B event last month. With a weight limit of 350 kg (772 lb) in the equally-matched TOM 28 class boats used in the event, Barkow will race with five women on her team rather than the customary four on most of the men’s teams. Among her crew is another top-ranked Women’s skipper, Genny Tulloch, who is actually ranked higher in the current ISAF Women’s rankings at 9th, versus Barkow’s current ranking of 11th. Both are on US Sailing’s Team AlphaGraphics on their road to qualify to represent the US in the Women’s match race discipline in the 2012 Olympic Games.

Three teams headed by skippers from the US east coast will be competing: Jon Singsen from Old Greenwich, CT; Mark Kroening from Newport, RI (though a Kiwi by birth); and Guy Mossman from Mount Pleasant, SC. Singsen and Kroening have been match racing for several years in Grade 2, 3, 4, and 5 events, and both first came to CMRC last year for this regatta, with Singsen finishing as runner-up and Kroening having an 11th place result. By contrast, Mossman is brand new to the game, yet still managed to win CMRC’s first event of the year, the Key West Invitational sailed in Melges 24’s in January.

Rounding out the field along with Wilson is local-based Steven Lowery, who has been very active in regional match race events over the past two years, winning the Richardson Trophy in 2008 and getting a 3rd-place result at CMRC’s Open A regatta last month.

For the Summer Classic B regatta starting Sunday, Canfield and Lowery will be replaced by two new skippers, Josh Kerst of Ann Arbor, MI, and Leo Vasiliev of Long Beach, NY. Kerst has been active in regional match race events in