It couldn’t have been any more exciting on the fifth and final day of the 2019 12 Metre World Championship hosted by Ida Lewis Yacht Club and organized by the International Twelve Metre Association’s (ITMA) Americas Fleet. In the fiercely contested eight-boat Modern Division, the stakes were high today for Challenge XII (KA-10), owned and skippered by Jack LeFort of Jamestown, R.I. Last night the team was disqualified after a protest hearing with Courageous (US-26), sailed by a Newport contingent led by Ralph Isham, Steve Glascock, Alexander Auersperg, Ward Marsh and Art Santry (helmsman). Falling from first overall to second, Challenge XII was tied on point score with third-place Courageous and two points behind Enterprise(US-27), helmed by Clay Deutsch of Newport. Going into today’s race LeFort knew that to win his division, he had to beatCourageous and put a boat between his team and Enterprise. He did that and more, closing out Courageous at the start and going on to win the race with a buffer of three boats on Enterprise. (Enterprise and Courageous wound up second and third, respectively.)
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