Sheboygan Yacht Club welcomes the world elite this week
The Women’s International Match Racing Series (WIM Series). The Women’s Match Racing World Championship. The Buddy Melges Challenge. Three coveted and prestigious events in a perfect match, beginning on Lake Michigan on Wednesday.
WIM Series Champion Stephanie Roble and U.S. Women’s Match Racing Champion Nicole Breault are the local hopes, here to defend the Stars & Stripes.
“This is our home event and we love coming here,” Roble said. “We all learned how to match race here in Sheboygan, and we’re ready to finish first here.”
“We’re really excited to have this chance to race some of the top female match racers in the world,” said Nicole Breault.
All 27 sailors in nine teams enjoyed the most perfect sailing conditions during Tuesday’s practice sessions on Lake Michigan with moderate winds and bright sunshine just outside the Sheboygan Yacht Club and the Sheboygan South Pier. But the forecast for the remainder of the week isn’t that promising, with some showers and maybe thunder expected.
“You can get just about anything out there,” said Maggie Shea, crewing for Roble in Epic Racing. “We’ve had a lot of light air days, so we anticipate some of that. But you can also see fog, or 6-foot swell and 20 knots of breeze. That’s the beauty of Lake Michigan, it’s totally unpredictable.”
Wednesday, all the crews are race mode, beginning the event with a double round-robin, followed by quarterfinals and semis later in the week, and then the final on Sunday. Sheboygan hosts one of only four U.S. Sailing Centers, and is the site for international match racing. Sail Sheboygan and SEAS have been very instrumental in the development of women’s match racing, not just in the USA, but also worldwide.
”The Sheboygan Yacht Club is honored and excited to be hosting a 2016 WIM Series event and the World Championship,” said Denise Cornell, Vice Commodore of the Sheboygan Yacht Club. “Our members are supporting this event in a variety of ways, from race management and umpiring to shore support and community outreach. We look forward to meeting the competitors and showing them that Sheboygan Yacht Club truly is ’The friendliest club on Lake Michigan!’”
In Sheboygan, the competitors will race in the Elliott 6m, in the exact same fleet of boats that were used in the 2012 Olympics. Sail Sheboygan takes great pride in the maintenance of their fleet of boats, and probably the sailors will not find a better maintained and fairer fleet of boats anywhere in the world.
“My team and I have made an effort to train in the Elliott 6Ms twice to prepare for this week, but the Elliott 6m is still relatively new for us,” Nicole Breault said. “We’ve learned a lot about how to sail the boat mechanically, but we’ll have to learn the nuances of the boat in a match race.”
