ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Gavin McJones posted a second-place finish at the Carl Van Duyne MAISA Men's Singlehanded Championship to qualify for the ICSA Men's Singlehanded National Championship.
Gavin McJones will join his sister
Jessica McJones at the ICSA National Championships in Santa Barbara, Calif., in November. The McJones' are set to return to their home state for the national championships as they hail from Ranchos Palos Verdes, Calif.
The Carl Van Duyne featured five berths to nationals and the Midshipmen had two sailors in the 18-boat field. The regatta featured a strong field and tough racing. With great weather, the wind was light to moderate out of the southeast for most of the weekend but the wind shifted south for the final three races of the weekend.
Connor Bayless started strong for Navy with good fleet management and experience racing in current. Over the first five races, Bayless led the field and he remained inside the top three for the entire first day of racing. The changing conditions on Sunday tightened the field and Bayless was in a back-and-forth battle for one of the last qualifying positions. In the final race, positions kept changing and who was in a position to advance changed numerous times on the last leg of the final race. With 100 yards to go, Bayless looked to be in a qualifying position but a puff of wind on the other side of the course shifted him down to 16th in the race and seventh overall in the field.
Gavin McJones won the first race of the regatta but struggled with consistency early on and traded good races with tough races. As the regatta went on, he found his rhythm and used his exceptional downwind boat speed to post consistent low scores late on Saturday and on Sunday. He won three more races to close out the regatta and climbed the leaderboard to place second overall to advance to the national championships.
Navy also competed at the Coed/Women's Combined Regatta, which was split into two regattas at one event. The event featured the top nine teams in MAISA Coed and Women's sailing with two, nine-team, 18-boat regattas. With the top teams in the league competing at the regatta, the level of competition was high, however, the weather did not cooperate. As soon as racing began on Saturday, the wind died down and never returned to wipeout racing on the first day. On Sunday, there was a light wind in the morning that was slated to build into the afternoon, but following a break, the wind died once again. The regatta finished with only five coed and four women's races being completed. The Midshipmen finished third in the coed field, where
Parker Loftus and
Sean Linden placed seventh in the combined division and
Max Brill and
Madeline Pruzan placed eighth. In the women's field, Navy placed seventh overall.
Olivia de Olazarra and
Sally Johnson were seventh in the fleet, while
Jessica McJones and
Kelly Milliken placed 13th.
This coming weekend, Navy is set to compete at three separate regattas. The Midshipmen travel to the Danmark Trophy in Connecticut, the ICSA Women's Showcase in Rhode Island and the Intrepid Trophy in New York.
