New York Yacht Club‘s Women’s International Championship was held September 12-19, on the waters off of Newport, Rhode Island, aboard the club’s fleet of identical Mark Mills’ designed IC37s. Forty-eight teams initially applied to the NYYC to compete, and the club winnowed this list down to 20 top-flight international skippers who were invited to form all-women’s teams and compete at this championship-level event. Several skippers hailed from ICOYC Member clubs, including New York Yacht Club, Nylandska Jaktklubben, Royal Canadian Yacht Club, Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, Royal Thames Yacht Club and St. Francis Yacht Club.

After ten races, Megan Grapengeter-Rudnick (USA) and Team Vigilant took top honors, finishing the regatta 23 points ahead of skipper Michelle Lahrkamp (USA) and her Fair American team, who finished in second place, and 28 points ahead of skipper Hannah Swett (USA) and her Team MO-Amundsen, who finished in third place.

“When we started the project, the goal was to win this event,” said Stephanie Roble, who raced as tactician aboard Team Vigilant, in an official event report. “But there’s so much that goes into it. Over the last few years, we really focused so much on the process of becoming the best version of ourselves in order to show up here and be the best. It’s been a really rewarding process as a team, and there have been a lot of highs and lows throughout two years of training. We’re just really proud that it all came together at the right moment.”

While the point spread describes a regatta that was dominated by one team, at least for first place, a glance at the granular results reveals that eight teams took home bullets, with only two teams (Team Vigilant and Team MO-Amundsen) collecting two individual race wins. This also created fierce competition for second and third place, and seven teams entered the regatta’s final day with just ten points separating their standings.

“We had the remainder of a northerly out there which is really tricky, very sheery, and then the easterly came in, brand new sea direction,” said Lahrkamp in a regatta report. “We did not see that the previous day, so very new, very exciting. We just stayed very heads out of the boat. The speed team was really dialed in.”

This obviously worked, and Lahrkamp’s Fair American team took second place, leaving Swett’s Team MO-Amundsen to tussle with skipper Sarah Douglas (CAN) and her Team Defiant for the podium’s final step.

“We started the day, literally, with a bang, so that was pretty awesome, winning the first race,” said Swett in a regatta report. “Going into the final day with eight boats that could get on the podium, we just had to do well. In our first race, we did really well. Then, boy, did we have a shocker in the second race. But then the third race, we played the shifts, and credit to my whole team for keeping the boat going. It was a very hard day. But we ended well.”

Ultimately, just a single point separated Swett’s Team MO-Amundsen and Douglas’s Team Defiant, once the finishing guns fell silent.

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