The 2025 North Americans were hosted in San Diego.
Results Summary
More information is available here: SDYC
Below is a recap by Fleet Captain Eric Hanson
The 2025 Beneteau 36.7 North American Championship: San Diego’s Poetic Return
By Eric Hanson
The Beneteau 36.7 North American Championship returned to the San Diego Yacht Club this October, the first time since 2021 that the familiar white hulls graced the Coronado Roads in earnest competition for the big title. Just two weeks after hosting the West Coast Championships/Beneteau Cup, the club once again found itself as the stage for the class’s quiet drama and the close of a season, the test of mettle, and the mingling of old and new rivals.
Traditionally, the 36.7 North Americans are a Midwestern affair: Lake Michigan’s choppy expanses and Toronto’s brisk gusts forming the usual theater. Yet this year’s West Coast venue offered a different cadence: a Pacific steadiness, a soft sun angling through early-autumn haze, and the measured roll of a predictable swell. The conditions were as kind as they were revealing with six to ten knots of breeze and clear skies.
Boats came in from up and down the Southern California coast: Seal Beach, Dana West, and, from farthest afield, Chicago. For the local fleet, it was a proving ground against familiar competitors and for the travelers, a baptism into the Pacific’s rhythm, and oscillating light breeze. Ten races were scheduled, a marathon, not a sprint and by the end of the first day’s three W/L courses, fatigue had begun to settle in with the same quiet inevitability as the morning marine layer.
The local legend Chick Pyle, returned from his summer migration to Aquidneck Island, reuniting with tactician Chuck Sinks and his familiar crew. Together they set out to defend Pyle’s 2021 championship title with the serene confidence of sailors who’ve seen it all.. Meanwhile, Alice Martin and her Chicago-based team Painkiller arrived early, turning their chartered Beneteau into a taut, purposeful racing machine. With renowned match racer Chris Poole calling tactics, they came off the starting line like a shot, finishing the first day a close second behind Eric Hanson’s Given-Ho whose crew worked their usual magic.
But San Diego had its tricks. Kelp the great equalizer of the Pacific lay in languid sheets beneath the surface, ready to snare an unwary keel or latch on to an unsuspecting rudder. Time and again, crews leaned over lifelines, straining to floss the dark vegetation away while precious knots of speed slipped through their fingers. Given-Ho avoided the worst of it early, collecting two bullets in the day’s opening races, only to gather a leafy trophy of its own in Race 3 a twenty-foot strand that dragged them down to seventh. Still, they ended the day atop the leaderboard, trailed closely by Painkiller and Kea.
Day Two brought steadier winds and keener focus. The fleet, now accustomed to the rhythm of Coronado Roads, sharpened their timing on the line. Kea, quiet through the opening day, began to find her stride. Her starts were clean, her trim deliberate, her crew in perfect conversation with the wind and sea. By midday, she was stacking low-number finishes and climbing the scoreboard. Given-Ho and Painkiller traded places in a dance of seconds and thirds, each reading the shifts and playing the kelp fields like seasoned hunters.
By the final day, tension had a texture. The standings were tight; one race could tilt the series. The morning haze lifted to a brilliant clarity as a light-wind San Diego postcard morning revealed itself. As the fleet jostled for position at the start of race 2, a protest flag went up from Painkiller against Given-Ho, a flash of red against the blue. The incident at the line sent murmurs across the water, a ripple of uncertainty that hung over the next leg only to get thrown out after a brief hearing at the regatta’s conclusion.
Kea, steady as tide and time, sailed day 3 with quiet precision. No dramatics, no heroics, just balance, rhythm and patience. She claimed the championship not in a single decisive moment, but through the accumulation of right choices, of calm hands and small mercies. Given-Ho held on for second thanks to exceptional crew work and tactics, and Painkiller, fierce and unrelenting, took third, their journey west rewarded with hard lessons and welcoming SDYC camaraderie.
As sails came down and voices drifted across the slips, the fleet exhaled and the regatta closed out with awards and more off-the-water fun. The season’s last light touched the water and one could almost believe the boats themselves felt the faint ache of completion. In the stillness after, it was easy to remember why we all come back year after year: not for trophies or titles, (though that too), but for the test of skill amongst friends from near and far.
Thank you to all the competitors that joined us at SDYC for this world class event, our amazing SDYC Catering Team, the Race Committee, and our sponsors Southcoast Yachts, Mt. Gay, and Pure Project. A big congratulations to Team Kea (1st), Given-Ho (2nd) and Painkiller (3rd).
Until Toronto!