TOP Bahamian sailors Spencer Cartwright and Joshua Higgins hit the waters in Maryland and England respectively over the weekend.

Cartwright sailed the Doomsday along with crewmates Sonia Lingos-Utley, Colin Merrick, Claire Buckley, Mackenzie Bryan and Michaela O’Donnell for a fourth-place finish overall at the 2024 US Team Racing Championship hosted by the Severn Sailing Association in Annapolis, Maryland.

Higgins, a native of Harbour Island, placed eleventh in the ILCA 7 class at the 2024 ILCA UK Open & National Championships at the Isle of Portland, Dorset on the south coast of England. 

The Doomsday team had a good showing in their bid to try and win the George R Hinman Trophy. 

The six-member crew won 11 out of 17 rounds sailed in for a win percentage of 64.71 per cent. 

Placing first in the event for the second straight year was the Los Huevos team that prevailed in 15 out of 17 events sailed in for a winning percentage of 88.24. The Rock City Cruising Club was second and the Jet Leg team finished the event in the third spot.

The Doomsday crew did not have a chance to challenge the victors for a top spot due to insufficient winds which caused the remaining stages of the event to be abandoned.

Despite not finishing in the top three, the four-time Bahamas Optimist National champion and company were just one of the 24 best teams in US team racing to be selected for the annual event.

Over at the 2024 ILCA UK Open & National Championships, Higgins capped off his UK experience ranked eleventh out of 60 sailors and fifth overall in his age category.  After competing in eleven rounds, with two discarded, he accumulated 107 points in total.

The 21-year-old had scores of 11,6,25,11,3, 24,7 15 and 5 across nine rounds. 

Finley Dickinson, representing the Royal Southern Yacht Club/ Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy (WPNSA), was the overall winner of the ILCA 7 class with a net score of 21. James Foster, of Poole Yacht Club, trailed the winner by 8 points with 29 overall. Great Britain’s Arthur Farley totaled 33 points in the nine rounds of competition.

The ILCA UK Open & National Championships ran from August 11-17. The event brought out 252 sailors to compete in the ILCA 7, ILCA 6 and ILCA 4 classes.