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Hardly a drop of water from a weekend of West Coast storms fell on the 23rd Rose Bowl Regatta on Saturday and Sunday, but after nightfall when the sailing was done the skies re-opened to rain all over Boston College's parade to the championship.

A protest by Stanford knocked BC - ranked #1 nationally - into second place and lifted St Mary's College of Maryland into first place for the second year in a row.

Point Loma High also repeated in the high school gold fleet competition with a Sunday comeback that brought it from 25 points behind to a 35-point edge over archrival Newport Harbour. Redondo Union won the silver fleet title by 10 points over South Bay neighbour Mira Costa of Manhattan Beach.

There were 28 college teams from the East Coast to Hawaii and 52 high schools from throughout California.

Boston College's A-boat sailed by all-American skipper Brian KAMILAR with crew Briana PROVANCHA won 4 of 11 races, but the trouble came when BC's B-boat tangled with Stanford at the weather mark in their ninth race. Stanford skipper Cole HATTON protested rival Tyler SINKS for forcing him to luff into the wind when SINKS, on port tack, tacked close to him within two boat lengths of the windward mark, then proceeded to contact the mark buoy.

HATTON's case was that SINKS did only one penalty turn for hitting the mark when he should have done two more for fouling Stanford. After a long deliberation, the race jury ruled in favour of Stanford, which remained in fifth place.

St Mary's winning team had Michael MENNINGER and crew Brooke THOMSON on one boat and Justin LAW and crew Adrienne PATTERSON - the college female sailor of the year - on the other. All are West Coast natives from Newport Harbour High School, except PATTERSON who attended Corona del Mar.

As for winning on someone else's protest, LAW said, "You take it. It was out of our control. All you can do is tell Boston College they sailed well and accept the win."

PATTERSON said, "I don't like winning on a protest. It doesn't really feel like you won. But for me, it's always a special regatta. It's like a reunion. Michael and I have sailed in seven or eight of these starting in high school. "

Coach Adam WERBLOW said, "It's neat for these guys because going to [college] on the East Coast, becoming better sailors and then coming back to strut their stuff with their friends and parents cheering them on … they worked really hard, and they had nothing to do with the protest. The chips fall where they may."

Point Loma was led by its B-boat team of skipper Nick KASCHAK and crew Morgane RENOIR, both 17-year-old seniors. They were in third place after six rounds Saturday, trailing Newport Harbour by a daunting 25 points.

"I realized we had to put some points on them," KASCHAK said.

Their fortunes looked up when a bit more breeze arrived in the early afternoon.

RENOIR said, "The breeze helped us. We sailed really fast. We got into a groove."

Two consecutive victories in the Rose Bowl Regatta "is a huge morale boost for us going into the rest of our regattas this year," KASCHAK said.

Their only problem was when the temperature dropped to 55 degrees when the wind increased.

"I was wearing five or six layers and was still cold," RENOIR said.

And, yes, she is an ancestor of the famous artist.

The event was hosted by the USC sailing team, organized by the US Sailing Centre of Long Beach and based at the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club.

All sailed two-person CFJ dinghies with male, female or coed crews competing equally.

Results - www.uscsailing.org/Rosebowl/Results.htm