Maria Cup

The Santa Maria Cup Women's Match Racing Championship returns to the Inner Harbor this week, with a 10-boat field but without some of the big-name women sailors who have raced in this event since 1991.The race -- in its fourth year -- will lose some of the better-known women to preparations for the America's Cup, which for the first time includes an all-women challenge to be the defender.Julia Trotman, Dawn Riley and Hannah Swett are among the missing. Riley and Swett are on Bill Koch's America3 team in San Diego where the America's Cup will be sailed next year.

Claire Leroy of France successfully defended her title Saturday at the Santa Maria Cup world match racing championship in the waters off Annapolis. Leroy, ranked No. 2 in the world, handled light winds and dodged heavy boat traffic to defeat Genny Tulloch of San Francisco, who also was runnerup last year. Fort Lauderdale's Anna Tunnicliffe, Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, finished third. Three-time Santa Maria winner and 2008 Olympian Sally Barkow finished fourth. The U.S. skippers are vying to represent the country in the new women's match-racing event at the 2010 Olympics.

Officials of the BOAT/U.S. Santa Maria Cup have announced the preliminary slate of 10 skippers for women's match racing championships to be held May 29-June 2 off Annapolis.The Santa Maria Cup, which for several years was sailed in the Inner Harbor, was moved to Annapolis last year. The round-robin regatta is sailed in J/22 sloops.International sailors new to the field this year are Marie Boserup Klok, top-ranked in Denmark; Klaartje Zuiderbaan of the Netherlands, who has raced at Boston University and in Europe in several classes; and Canadian Felicity Clarke, ranked No. 15 on the Omega World Women's Match Racing list.

Female sailors from around the world will be in Annapolis this week to compete for the BoatU.S. Santa Maria Cup, one of the most highly regarded women's match racing events. Former Olympians and Olympic hopefuls will be on the 10 teams, which include five from the U.S., two from Italy and one each from Australia, Canada and France. Each skipper invited to participate selects a crew of three. "We pick the best of the best to come to our event. It's very prestigious to be picked," said Jeff Borland of the Eastport Yacht Club and co-chairman of the event.

For Baltimore J-22 sailor Melinda Berge, there were good and bad moments yesterday during the first four rounds of the Santa Maria Cup sailed on the Inner Harbor off Canton.Two of the good moments were victories against Lynda Corrado of California and Paula Lewin of Bermuda. Two of the bad were losses to Karen Johnson of Canada and Julia Trotman of New York."Julia Trotman gave us a severe lesson on how to tack away and give you a tacking duel upwind," Berge said. "We were fortunately able to put that lesson to good use in the last race, which we won."

Yesterday on the Severn River, the Santa Maria Cup women's match-racing regatta kicked off five days of sailing with a celebrity race intended to do no more than get the attention of the media -- and perhaps to produce a few chuckles on the race course.Aboard Frolic, one of 10 J/22 sloops donated by their owners for use in the women's match-racing championships that will run through Sunday, the mood was light as Betsy Alison and Nancy Haberland discussed starting strategies -- whether to hack around or go for the jugular.

On two occasions during the preliminary series of the Santa Maria Cup Women's Match Racing Championships, Melinda Berge made up large margins to win.Yesterday, in the final series, the Baltimore sailor twice had chances to do so again.At the top of the second leg to windward in the first race of the finals, Berge and Karen Johnson of Vancouver, British Columbia, had their boats dead into the wind, each waiting for the other to err and give her opponent a path to the mark and the lead entering the last leg of the race.

After two days and 40 races, three things are clear: Hannah Swett's team will be in the semifinal round today, six other crews still have a shot, and three crews cannot advance beyond the round robin of the Santa Maria Cup being sailed on the Inner Harbor.Swett, of Jamestown, R.I., won four of five races she sailed yesterday and is in first place with a 7-1 record. Even if Swett loses her final match of the round robin today against Dawn Riley of Detroit, Swett will still have the best record among the 10 teams.

J. J. Isler, Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, and U.S. Olympic team member Cory Sertl and their respective three-women crews from California and New York tied for the lead after the first day in the Santa Maria Cup championship regatta match race yesterday just outside the Inner Harbor.The second day of round-robin match racing will continue today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with semifinals tomorrow at 10 a.m. and finals at noon.The first-time event, headquartered in the HarborView Yacht Club and Marina and sponsored by Crown Central Petroleum Corporation, has attracted some of the top female sailors.

Melissa Purdy, of Tiburon, Calif., completed her domination of the Santa Maria Cup women's match racing championships in Annapolis yesterday by winning two of three races in the final round against Betsy Alison of Newport, R.I.Purdy, skippering for the first time in a match-race event, finished the four days of competition with a 13-1 record.Alison, a four-time Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year and a previous winner of the Santa Maria Cup, lost only three races overall, but all came against Purdy.

Clear skies and a light shifting breeze greeted the best female sailors in the world as they sliced through Annapolis waters yesterday. In town to compete in the Santa Maria Cup, the women got in a practice before the four-day regatta begins today. The Santa Maria Cup is one of the most highly regarded women's match racing events in the world, with only the Olympics and World Championships outranking it. This year, it has attracted the top two female sailors in the world, and teams from France, Sweden, Bermuda and the United States.

Elizabeth Baylis and her crew, the reigning women's world match-racing champions, added the 2003 Santa Maria Cup to their trophy case yesterday after a grueling week of racing in the mouth of the Severn River off Annapolis. Baylis, from San Rafael, Calif., jumped to an early lead, reeling off nine straight victories in the first round of races. She went into yesterday's racing in first place, with 17-year-old Giulia Conti, the Italian sailing prodigy, and Paula Lewin, Bermuda's Olympic sailing hopeful, close behind, tied for second.

Sweden's Marie Bjorling, the top-ranked women's sailor in the world, handily won the Boat US Santa Maria Cup yesterday after sailing a near-perfect regatta in the waters off Annapolis last week. Bjorling won all but two of her 18 races in the round-robin tournament that started Wednesday, then she and her crew swept the semifinals and finals on a day when racing almost didn't start because of a lack of wind. "We made some mistakes the first day, then we didn't make them anymore," Bjorling said at dockside after yesterday's racing.

Barely a month after one international group of sailors leaves Chesapeake Bay, another one arrives. Some of the top women sailors in the world are in Annapolis this week for the BoatUS Santa Maria Cup regatta, a series of match races that opens tomorrow in the mouth of the Severn River. And though this group may not be as high on the glamour scale as the women of the Volvo Ocean Race, they are as accomplished in their own right. There's Marie Bjorling, of Sweden, the No. 1 women's match racer.

America's Cup skipper Dawn Riley is attempting to defend her title in the Boat U.S. Santa Maria Cup - the premier match-racing yacht competition for women in the United States - against some of the world's best-known female sailors. With the Eastport Yacht Club as host, this week's five-day Chesapeake Bay event has attracted 12 sailing stars, including top-ranked Shirley Robertson from Britain, who came in second to Riley last year, and Rhode Island's Betsy Alison, the only five-time Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year and three-time U.S. women's national sailing champion.

The two 22-foot sailboats zigged and zagged across the mouth of the Severn River as the four-member crews engaged in a fierce yet balletic duel to the finish line. Tacking and jibing this week under a bright sun were some of the world's best female sailors, drawn to Annapolis for a five-day marathon of intense one-on-one contests that make up the BoatU.S. Santa Maria Cup. "I call it unabashed aggressiveness," said Sandy Grosvenor, a boisterous woman with silver-specked hair and raccoon eyes caused by wearing sunglasses.

It took Dawn Riley a little time to adjust to sailing a 22-foot keelboat after months of training in the 75-foot International America's Cup Class, but during four days of racing in the Inner Harbor the skipper from Detroit learned quickly enough to win the Santa Maria Cup women's match racing championship.Riley began the 57-race regatta on Thursday by losing two of three races. On Friday, her team won four of its five races, and on Saturday it won two of three to earn a berth in yesterday's final against Nicky Bethwaite of Australia.

Barely a month after one international group of sailors leaves Chesapeake Bay, another one arrives. Some of the top women sailors in the world are in Annapolis this week for the BoatUS Santa Maria Cup regatta, a series of match races that opens tomorrow in the mouth of the Severn River. And though this group may not be as high on the glamour scale as the women of the Volvo Ocean Race, they are as accomplished in their own right. There's Marie Bjorling, of Sweden, the No. 1 women's match racer.

When it came down to the final race, Dawn Riley of San Francisco ditched the complicated tactics of match racing and simply put the hammer down yesterday to win the Santa Maria Cup championship off Annapolis."

Northerly winds of about 20 knots greeted the Santa Maria Cup sailors yesterday morning, as the women's match racing championships entered its third day of competition, and Dawn Riley of San Francisco was perfect in the blustery conditions.Riley, CEO and team captain of the San Francisco-based America True challenge syndicate for the America's Cup, won each of seven races her team sailed in Round Robin 2. The victories lifted Riley into a second-place tie with Cory Sertl of Rochester, N.Y., who won six races yesterday.