110th Lipton Cup Regatta Kicks Off at SDYC on Friday
by Karina Sandhu, SDYC 23 Oct 2025 23:45 UTC
October 24-26, 2025
2024 Lipton Cup © Mark Albertazzi
The 110th Challenge for the Sir Thomas Lipton Cup returns to San Diego Yacht Club October 24 - 26. Named after legendary yachtsman and tea baron Sir Thomas Lipton, the Lipton Cup is one of the most highly anticipated regattas of the season and one of the most highly coveted trophies in Southern California.
The three-day regatta brings together twelve teams from across the United States and Mexico to compete in a round-robin format. The regatta is sailed in J/105s, which are loaned to the event by individual SDYC members. In addition to racing the same model of boat, each team is required to rotate between the boats, sailing each boat once over the course of three days to keep every aspect of the regatta even.
Entries:
- Club de Yates de Acapulco, Ricardo Brockmann
- Alamitos Bay YC, Chris Raab
- American YC, Don Dowd
- Balboa YC, Ryan Davidson
- Bayview YC, Hanson Bratton
- California YC, Jordan Janov
- Coronado YC, Scott Harris
- Long Beach YC, Steve Flam
- New York YC, Pete Levesque
- Newport Harbor YC, Justin Law
- San Diego YC, Jake La Dow
- San Francisco YC, Shawn Bennett
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Lipton Cup Event Chair, Dave Vieregg, discusses his plans for executing a memorable regatta stating “We will follow our successful event format from previous years including the J/105s, round robins, and most important, South Bay venue, one of the best places to race on the planet with its flat water and sea breeze. I think the racers will have a great time on and off the water and am looking forward to seeing what the weekend brings.”
San Diego Yacht Club has won the Lipton Cup in four consecutive years. The 2025 host club's team includes Skipper Jake La Dow with Nevin Snow, Chuck Eaton, Erik Shampain, Max Hutcheson, Lucy Wallace, and Jake Reynolds. La Dow, who skippered SDYC to its 2025 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitation Cup win in early September is ready to jump right into another signature regatta closer to home. When discussing how he and his team have prepared for Lipton Cup, La Dow states, “The Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup was a very long event where we did two practice events ahead of racing and sailing for a total of 16 days. That is quite a bit of sailing in a short period in a very relevant format to the Lipton Cup. In addition to the sailing we did all summer, we’ve been practicing together in the J/105s to recalibrate to these boats. I’m looking forward to being local and seeing so many familiar faces on the water and our many SDYC supporters.”
Justin Law has skippered Newport Harbor Yacht Club’s Lipton Cup team since 2019, and is familiar with what it takes to be a competitive team in this event. “Our team representing Newport Harbor Yacht Club is a rock solid group of sailors. Having the combined experience onboard is extremely valuable, especially for an event like the Lipton Cup, which is one of the most competitive events and demands consistency from the very first race. While our yacht club, like many others, is loaded to the gills with excellent sailors, the team I’ve had the pleasure of sailing with over the past several years does give us the best chance to win the Lipton Cup. Team San Diego is a prime example of having nearly the same team year after year and it’s pretty obvious that their experience has been instrumental with the success they have had.”
Newport Harbor YC was the last challenger to win the Lipton Cup over the host club SDYC in 2019 and has stayed near the top of the podium over the past few years finishing 3rd in 2024, 2nd in 2023, 6th in 2022 and 4th in 2021.
While most of this year’s teams have previously competed in the Lipton Cup, there is a new kid on the block, Bayview Yacht Club out of Detroit, Michigan. When asked what he was most looking forward to about the regatta, Skipper Hanson Bratton stated, “I’m looking forward to seeing how my team holds up against the competition. It’s never easy to know how you stand until you compete against some of the best. We are training on a fellow Bayview member’s J/105. We’ve been practicing basically on a weekly basis and are currently expanding our training to include a second J/105 to train against. We have a set of MarkSetBots to establish accurate W/L courses and starting lines to train with.” Bratton will be joined by his crew Alex Hume, Nathan Hollerbach, David Shriner, Todd Jones, and Shay Gualdoni.
Racing will take place in San Diego’s South Bay on Friday, October 24 – Sunday October 26 with starts scheduled for 1125 daily. In addition to racing, competitors, guests and members can look forward to a variety of social events hosted at San Diego Yacht Club. Daily race results will be posted online at liptoncup.sdyc.org/results.
More information on the 2025 Lipton Cup can be found at liptoncup.sdyc.org.
Thank you to our dedicated sponsors, who make events like this one possible: Helly Hansen, Bay Club Hotel and Marina, Chipz Happen, Bella Luna Wines, North Sails and Quantum Sails.