Governor’s Cup: Balboa Yacht Club rides swell day
Of the 12 boats competing in the Governor’s Cup off Newport Beach, Balboa Yacht Club sailed in at the end on Thursday.
Balboa Yacht Club was the last to dock its boat, but the host of the oldest youth match racing regatta in the world finds itself near the top.
The third day of competition for Balboa Yacht Club skipper Christophe Killian and crew members Harrison Vandervort and Jack Martin turned out much better than the first two days.
Stressful is how Killian described the first two days. Leading up to the 50th Governor’s Cup, Killian said he and his crew felt the pressure to lead Balboa Yacht Club to the title.
“All this pressure is from the 36 years of not winning it,” Vandervort said, referring to Balboa Yacht Club’s drought.
Winning is all Killian, Vandervort and Martin, in their third year competing together in the Governor’s Cup, did on Thursday.
On one day, Balboa Yacht Club almost matched its win total from the previous two days. Balboa Yacht Club went 5-0 on Thursday, helping it move into fourth place with four round-robin races left on Friday.
Through 18 races, Balboa Yacht Club has 11 points (one point for each win), five behind leader San Diego Yacht Club, which last won the Governor’s Cup five years ago with the same skipper, Nevin Snow. Defending champion Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, which features skipper Harry Price, is in second place with 15 points, followed by the Australia’s Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club skippered by Sam Gilmour (13 points).
“It was a great day,” Killian said. “I think that [performance] gives us a shot at the final four. The final four move on [the semifinals]. We’ve got a shot at it now.”
Balboa Yacht Club pulled off a couple of narrow wins, beating Australia’s Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, which is skippered by Lachy Gilmour, by half a foot and finishing things off by edging Cruising Yacht Club of Australia by a couple of feet. The last result was impressive, as Cruising Yacht Club, skippered by Harry Price, only lost once in its first 11 races.
While the light winds benefited Balboa Yacht Club, one of the lightest crews in the competition, the reason behind its turnaround was simple if you asked Killian, a 2014 Corona del Mar High graduate who is a student at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.
“We were having some rough races, some frustrations [the first two days], and we just wanted to have a little bit of fun and I think we did,” said Killian, whose team had only six wins in its first 13 races. “We laughed a few times. [Martin and Vandervort] fell in the water. We were laughing right in the middle of the race.”
Winning can make everyone happy. The trio stayed positive, even though Vandervort heard the news that lifeguards spotted a shark in nearby waters.
So, how did Vandervort and Martin, both Newport Harbor graduates, react in the water?
“We got back in [the boat] real quick,” Vandervort said.
Killian is going to need Vandervort and Martin, if Balboa Yacht Club plans to advance to the semifinals, which are set for Friday, after the last four round-robin races.
Third place in the Governor’s Cup is the best showing by the three the last two years. They know the two teams behind Balboa Yacht Club — Australia’s Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club (10 points) and Del Rey Yacht Club of Marina del Rey (nine) — are within striking distance of fourth place.
Balboa Yacht Club cracked the top on the shortest day of the Governor’s Cup, which ends Saturday. While the 11 other teams planned to eat dinner at Balboa Yacht Club and go on the beer can regatta, Killian, Vandervort and Martin had other plans.
“We’re going to get some In-N-Out [Burger],” Killian said. “We get to do this all the time, so we’re going to let all the teams who are visiting go sailing and we’ll go do our own thing tonight.”
