Yacht Clubs Vie to Determine Best of Nation’s Best

Twelve teams from the foremost clubs in the United States sail today in Newport Harbor Yacht Club’s fourth biennial U.S. Yacht Club Challenge to determine the best club in the nation. Racing begins at noon today, Friday and Saturday.

Competition on ocean courses will be in Schock-35 one-design sloops with skippers changing boats on each of the three days. An innovation this year will be junior sailing inside the bay in two classes of dinghies, the 13-foot two-man Flying Junior and the 14-foot single-handed Laser.

The combined score of each club will determine the “best in the U.S.” and have the club’s name engraved on the U.S. Yacht Club Challenge Cup.

Past winners have been Eastern Yacht Club, Marblehead, Mass., 1984; the host Newport Harbor Yacht Club in 1986, and the Manhassett Bay Yacht Club, New York in 1988.