ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Navy's offshore sailing team started its summer competition schedule at the 500-mile Annapolis to Newport Race where the Midshipmen won the SURFLANT Trophy for the best overall performance by a service academy team.
 
The race featured a number of challenges for the competitors, which included navigating through pea soup fog for more than 300 miles of the competition.
 
Navy had five crews compete in the event and in the 10-boat ORC 4 division, the skipper and XO pair of Samuel Hall and Kelly White led their crew aboard Integrity to a second-place finish while skipper Meade Tolen and his XO Luke Brodnik were seventh in the class aboard Defiance.
 
In the ORC 2 class, which featured 14 boats, the skipper and XO team of Luke Gillcrist and Cory Routen guided their crew on Ranger to finish eighth in the class. Zachary Medeiros and Gary Munsell on Wasp placed 10th while Keegan Steele and Cade Gelhar on Zephyr finished 12th.
 
In the race for service academy awards against crews from Merchant Marine Academy and Coast Guard Academy, Navy's team on Ranger led by Gillcrist and Routen won the SURFLANT Trophy, which goes to the best overall performance from a service academy team and is determined by time handicap system among the disparate boats. The crew on Ranger also won the Gerber Trophy for best performance by a Naval Academy boat and navigator Joseph Garcia was awarded the Carey Arthur Trophy, which goes to the navigator of the top service academy boat.
 
Navy now gears up for the New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta, which begins on Friday and runs through the weekend in Newport, R.I.