RMC Sailing Riding on Waves of Success
On April 26th 2008 the RMCYC Sailing Team defeated the United States Military Academy at West Point and finished 3rd place overall at the Army 2-on-2 Team Race Regatta at West Point, NY. Team members included Skippers Tom Eagle 24926 and Francis Montangese 24554, Crews Allen Lee 24892 and Matt Bowman 24202, and Captain Joey Rotchford 24141. The team finished 3rd place overall in the regatta which was made up of mostly varsity level sailing teams from the North Eastern United States. This comes at the end of a banner year for sailing at the Royal Military College and sets the stage for success in the coming season.
For those who are unaware, sailing has seen a rebirth over the past four years at RMC. The Sailing Team, which is regular competitor on the College Sailing scene in North Eastern North America, is a syndicate of the RMCYC (Royal Military College Yacht Club). The Club has seen a total restructuring over the past year with the main change of having cadets back in its leadership. With this change the club has grown to 30+ members who actively take the waters of Lake Ontario. The club, through various presentations to different bodies, has seen its budget grow significantly over the past year which has allowed some much needed repairs to its current ageing fleet. Further with the new monies the club has been able to purchase a brand new J22 racing keelboat which is due into Kingston at the end of the month. Also the racing syndicate team has now been able to participate in more regattas in different places than ever before.
The team, as a division of the club, regularly competes against schools like Cornell, Princeton, Queens, and West Point. The league in which the team competes is the Intercollegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) which has both varsity and club teams competing against each other. While RMC does not finish first in many of the regattas, the team does finish mid-fleet which is remarkable considering the fact that the RMC is a club team with a budget and student base that pales in comparison with some of the Ivy League Varsity teams that partake in the same regattas. Keeping the mind that the team is still a club team and not yet a varsity team and thus the practice time and school support isn’t at and optimal level, the team relies mostly on the remarkable Sailing talent pool RMC has every year. This comes from a number of cadets having significant prior sailing racing experience to the point where there are a number of national championship sailors competing on the RMC team. While this may seem like good timing for the club it seems that every year there are more of these individuals coming to RMC. This only makes sense as Kingston, which has been named the best Freshwater sailing anywhere, would attract quality sailors to its universities.
To quickly highlight some of the accomplishments the team has seen over the past year to members that may not have heard:
-Summer 2007 – Finished 4th place in Military Collegiate World Championships at Tall Ships 2007 Festival in Newport, Rhode Island
-Summer 2007 – Winner of the Sponsors award for best overall Team at the Military Collegiate World Championships at Tall Ships 2007 Festival in Newport, Rhode Island
-Fall 2007 – Participated in 6 ICSA regattas, this included one Post Season Regatta at Saint Mary’s University in Baltimore, MD.
-Winter 2008 – RMC selected by ICSA to participate in 12 College Regattas in 2008, this included the TS Stern Sloop Championships at USNA sailing 44 foot Super Racing Yachts (Navy 44’s).
-Spring 2008 – Participated in 2 ICSA regattas, this included a win against the USMA a week before the annual Sandhurst Competition.
To look at the upcoming summer season the club will be very active as there are a number of club members remaining on the peninsula over this summer. If any ex-cadets out there would like to see what he club is up to or go out sailing with the club boats or with some club members please do not hesitate to contact the club or drop by the waterfront of RMC.