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Luke Lawrence Wins the 2025 Etchells North American Championship

Sunday, May 18, 2025

The competitors for the Etchells North American Championship in San Diego left the dock Sunday morning for the final two races of the regatta with a lot of work still in front of them to determine the winner.

In Race 7, John Dane (Here We Go Again) was the race leader around every mark and through the finish, and jumped back into contention for the Championship. Meanwhile Peter Duncan (Oatmeal) climbed from 8th around the first mark to 3rd place by the end of the downwind leg, and would hold on to finish 3rd taking over the regatta lead, 2 points ahead of Luke Lawrence (Bayou Hustler).

While the top 2 teams were feeling confident about their chances, heading into the final race 6 teams in total were within 9 points of the lead and felt like they still had a shot. Peter Duncan climbed back into the race on Leg 3, rounding just 4 places behind Lawrence, but couldn’t make up the ground on the final windward leg to the finish as Lawrence pulled away to finish 4th in the race and secure the Championship win. Duncan would end up fourth overall by just a few points.

Lawrence was ecstatic about his team’s victory. “Another amazing week in San Diego! Thanks again to Austin Sperry for the opportunity of a lifetime. It was amazing to sail with some of my heroes. John Kostecki and Brian Ledbetter were such a pleasure to be around for the week. We learned a lot about Etchells and San Diego from Rodney [Hagebols] and Fuzz [Grant Spanhake] who were incredibly helpful with their feedback from
the coach boat. We can’t wait to come back next year!”

Second place went to the leaders after Day 1, Simon Cooke (New Order), followed by Jim Cunningahm (Lifted) in third place. When asked about the regatta experience this week, Cunningham said “We couldn't have asked for a better day of sailing as half a dozen teams had a shot at winning the championship. With light oscillating south southwesterly breezes for both races the challenge was to get good starts and be able to sail the lifted tack. It's not always easy to do that especially when you have such depth and quality of teams racing all around you. In the end, both the Corinthian and open champions sailed extremely well and earned their spots at the top of the podium. I'd also like to mention that Mark Foster and the entire race committee did a fantastic job as did all the wonderful hardworking volunteers at the San Diego Yacht Club who again put on a great event and made us all feel so welcomed. We are looking forward to sailing here later this Fall and into the Spring in the ramp up to the 2026 Worlds next May!”

1st Place: Luke Lawrence, Brian Ledbetter, John Kostecki
2nd Place: Simon Cooke, Anatole Masfen, Micah Wilkinson
3rd Place: Jim Cunningham, Steve Hunt, Erik Shampain, Serena Vilage
1st Corinthian: Will La Dow, Jake La Dow, Alex Curtiss, Autumn Sanders
2nd Corinthian: Ethan Doyle, Matt Hecht, Theo Card, Johnny Fewell
3rd Corinthian: Paul Taylor, James Stewart, Anna Taylor, Eve Trotter

Last year’s North Americans champion John Dane had the best final day of the fleet with a 4-1-6 to finish 5th overall.

In the Corinthian division two teams stood out from the rest of the group: Will La Dow (Second Chance) and Ethan Doyle (Capricorn). Both teams finished top 20 in nearly every race. La Dow and Doyle battled throughout the final race with Doyle needing to make up 6 points on La Dow. Both teams again finished in the top 20, but La Dow was able to stay close enough to win the Corinthian division by 1 point over Doyle. Paul Taylor place third in the Corinthian standings.

Mark Foster served as PRO for this year’s North Americans and gave his perspective on today’s racing and the regatta overall:

“Today we sailed 2 races. The first race, the wind was in the 210 range, with the course set to 220. The race got a little long and we shortened the second weather leg and ended up with a nice race with a building breeze. For the 2nd race today the wind picked up a little bit, in the 8-10 kt range. The wind went over to 235 and we reset the course to that heading and kept it there for the entire race. Nice sunny conditions on the water, just a Chamber of Commerce day for sailing in San Diego.

I’ve been using Vakaros, and this is my 15th regatta I’ve used it at. It performed as I would expect it to, with identifying boats OCS and that they came back. It eliminates all General Recalls and penalty flags, so everyone gets to sail every race. By saving the recalls we save a tremendous amount of time on the water and the time is more productive on the water where we sail and we don’t do practice starts.

When racing, it shows me the line within meters, distance to line and time to burn. It takes the average sailor and makes them a better starter. It takes the people who used to be good at hiding and takes that asset away and makes the playing field more even for the entire fleet.

Thank you to San Diego Yacht Club for inviting me and putting the team together to make this regatta so successful and make my job extremely easy.”

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Luke Lawrence Wins the 2025 Etchells North American Championship

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Luke Lawrence Wins the 2025 Etchells North American Championship