The Royal Canadian Yacht Club made a significant move up the leaderboard Tuesday, posting the day’s best performance with 10 points across three races to pull within five points of defending champions San Diego Yacht Club at the 2025 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup.
The Canadians now sit in second place with 25 points, trailing San Diego’s 20 points after six races in the biennial amateur sailing competition.
“It was an interesting day,” said Scott Collinson, the Royal Canadian team’s main trimmer. “We’d done a lot of homework on that course. We really wanted to make sure that we understood what we thought was going to happen and it played out.”
The day’s most dramatic story belonged to Japan Sailing Federation, which rebounded from what team tactician Hiroki Goto called “a disastrous opening day” to capture their first race win of the regatta in Race 5.
After posting finishes of fourth and first to start Day 2, the Japanese team watched their comeback hopes temper with a 14th-place finish in the day’s final race. Despite the setback, team principal Masuhiro Bamba accepted the prize for winning Race 5 with obvious satisfaction.
“We had a completely different day from Day 1,” Goto said. “We had a lot to prove. In the last downwind, we passed the leader and won the race, which was our dream from Day 1. The long briefing last night paid off.”
Royal Thames Yacht Club holds third place with 35 points, while Royal Vancouver Yacht Club sits fourth at 37.6 points and Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club rounds out the top five with 38 points.
Racing took place on the flat water inside Narragansett Bay between Prudence Island and the north tip of Conanicut Island, providing more forgiving conditions than Monday’s offshore swell on Rhode Island Sound. The fleet was more compact, though teams that struggled off the starting line found it difficult to recover.
Royal Cork Yacht Club continued an impressive upward trajectory, finishing third on the day to climb to eighth overall. The Irish club has improved in each race since opening with a 14th-place finish, capping Tuesday with a second-place result.
Twenty teams from 12 countries are competing in the nine-day regatta, which concludes Saturday. The competition features the IC37 class, designed by Mark Mills, with all boats owned and maintained by the New York Yacht Club to ensure equal competition.
Weather forecasts call for lighter winds for the remainder of the regatta, potentially making it more difficult for trailing teams to make up ground. Race officials have moved Wednesday’s first race to a 10:30 a.m. start due to the forecast.
Live coverage continues on YouTube and Facebook, with Race 7 scheduled for Wednesday morning.
The regatta is sponsored by title sponsor Rolex and regatta sponsors Helly Hansen, Safe Harbor Marinas and Peters & May.
