Swan 42 US National Championship at New York Yacht Club

Charles Kenahan's Mahalo crew sailed a nearly perfect regatta to claim the Swan 42 US National Championships © Stuart Streuli / New York Yacht Club

The Swan 42 National Championship has been a staple of the Newport summer schedule since the boat debuted in 2007. This year, it was Charles Kenahan's Mahalo that walked away with the championship, finishing first or second in six of nine races.

Kenehan is a relative newcomer to the class, having bought Mahalo (right, rounding the windward mark) in 2012. And he's had to fight his way up the ladder. A week ago he and his team finished seventh of eight in the Sail Newport Regatta.

"We had not had our core crew together since the Rolex Swan Cup last September in the Med," said Kenahan. "We were all very excited to be back together. I spent plenty of time in the back end of the fleet and you look forward and see these boats that are just set up so well, just 'locked in', and they tend to carry it for most, if not all, of a regatta. We were just lucky enough that this was our first time 'locked in'. We're very pleased about that and we hope we can do it again. It's camaraderie, pursuit of excellent and it's a lot of hard work."

The 2015 Nationals also featured two interesting subplots. Four of the boats were competing for the New York Yacht Club's berth in the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup, sailing's premiere Corinthian one-design big-boat regatta. This competition came down to the final race with three teams all but tied in the qualification standings. Paul Zabetakis and his team on Impetuous came through when it counted, taking a second in the final race and beating the other two boats, Chris Culver's Blazer and Colin Gordon's Apparition by two points apiece in the qualification results.

"It's pretty emotional," said Zabetakis, who was the Invitational Cup event chairman in 2013. "We started this back in January. The crew was great, and I can't say enough about tactician John Baxter. This is my first season sailing with him, but I've known his father for years."

Zabetakis, who has sailed in the class since its inception, said the regatta was particularly stressful, with the four boats focused almost exclusively on beating one other, even to the detriment of their overall results.

"We were tacking on each other, taking each other off the course," said Zabetakis (at right). "It was like the last day of a major regatta—when you have one boat you need to focus on—for the last three days of the event."

The second subplot featured the teams that were using the Nationals as part of their training for the Rolex Invitational Cup. Seattle Yacht Club and the Royal Thames Yacht Club both showed they are in strong form with a second and a third, respectively in the Nationals. Defending Invitational Cup champion Daring, from the Royal Canadian YC, was fifth with Barry Sampson's Long Echo, which will represent England's Itchenor Sailing Club, in eighth.

"The important part [in the Invitational Cup] is to be fast in and out of the corners, that's where you make your gains and loses and we're [sailing in the Nationals] to be very smooth in those places," said Andrew Loe, the Seattle Yacht Club skipper. "[In 2013], leaving this week, we were still frustrated by a lot of things, but now we feel like were polishing as opposed to learning every day. We're very confident compared to last time."

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