Game time for US Women’s Match Racing

The 2025 U.S. Women’s Match Racing Championship brings together ten teams on August 15-17 for J/22 racing in San Francisco, CA. Hosted by St. Francis Yacht Club, this year’s lineup runs deep with sailing champions, including the top three ranked U.S. Women’s teams, ICSA All-Americans, and previous event winners.

Four-time winner and defending champions Team BAAM (Allie Blecher, Beka Schiff, Ali Blumenthal, and Katja Sertl) are back and ready for a four-peat. Hot off a win at the 2025 Santa Maria Cup, and a fifth at the Casa Vela Cup – which is also hosted by St. Francis Yacht Club – they are bringing their A game in a bid to defeat second ranked, and celebrated U.S. Women’s match racer Nicole Breault.

Breault and her team Vela Racing (Hailey Thompson, Molly Vandemoer, and McKenzie Wilson) come into this event as the hometown favorite, gunning for her fifth career victory at the U.S. Women’s Match Racing Championship. She was the runner up last year and was invited to compete at this year’s Congressional Cup, North America’s premier match race.

As a San Francisco local, Breault brings not only a wealth of match racing knowledge, but a significant amount of practice at a notoriously difficult venue. Breault comes into this event as the U.S. representative for the upcoming Women’s Match Racing World Championship this fall in Chicago, IL.

The third U.S. woman in the international match race rankings, Lindsey Baab is in the hunt for her first-ever U.S. Women’s Match Racing title. Baab, who was named a ICSA Women’s All-American at Brown University in 2016 and 2017, exploded on the women’s match racing scene last year, where she took second place at her first ever USWMRC.

Taking to the water in what appears to be her first match race as a helm, College Sailing wunderkind Michelle Lahrkamp will try her hand at this challenging discipline. Lahrkamp was part of the Stanford team that won the 2023 College Open and Women’s Fleet Race Nationals as well as the ICSA Women’s Team Race and Women’s Fleet Race National Championships in 2024. She is also the youngest woman to be named the Quantum Women’s Sailor of the Year as a freshman at Stanford.

Entry list:
• Lindsey Baab / Helen Lord / Kate Shiber / Elena VandenBerg – StFYC
• Caroline Bayless / Emma Montgomery / Nora Ong / Noelle Owen – AYC Foundation/Something Chill Yacht Club
• Allie Blecher / Ali Blumenthal / Beka Schiff / Katja Sertl – Team BAAM / California YC
• Nicole Breault / Hailey Thompson / Molly Vandemoer / McKenzie Wilson – Vela Racing / StFYC
• Molly Carapiet / Evan Cahill / Kate Gaumond / Megan Grimes – StFYC / SFYC
• Marilyn Cassedy / Carling Freeborn / Ellie Glenn / Megan Marsh – California YC
• Gwynie Dunlevy / Eva Fortunato / Whitney Kent / Marley Mais – CBYRA/AYCF
• Julia Jaynes / Liz Hopkins / Caroline Salas / Rochelle VanTil – Williwaw / Alamitos Bay YC
• Michelle Lahrkamp / Trish Gerli / Sammy Pickell / Ana Clare Sole – Stanford Sailing Alumnae
• Rebecca McElvain / Erika Barth / Lindsey Kloc / Julie Mitchell

Betsy Alison, Director of Adult Programs at US Sailing and a previous National and World Match Racing Champion, is impressed with the participants. “The skippers are a formidable bunch and I am quite certain the match racing will be close and exciting. The city front racecourse is challenging, presenting big breeze and current, so sailors will have to be on their game to get to and stay on top of the leaderboard.”

Event information – Race details – Results

Source: US Sailing