Italians dominate as Bocconi are lying first and MIP second.

Bocconi and LBS are lying second and third respectively with 22 and 23 points, while Manchester and Cranfield benefit from the smaller number of qualifying boats in Greece and move up to 4th and 6th respectively at the expense of MIP Milano and Warwick who drop to 5th and 7th respectively. Only the 6 boats in the “A” division at Athens could qualify for the trophy, and so only those boats competing in the A division could gain points for the league.

Other big movers are Wharton, Chicago and HEC/Trium who missed Athens this year and so drop 4, 10 and 7 places respectively.

Bocconi sneak ahead of MIP

The team from SDA Bocconi sailed away with the Global MBA Trophy in Piraeus, (Athens) Greece.

The regatta was sailed for the first time in one – design sport boats, the Platu 25, provided by the Platu 25 Class association, rather than the cruising boats usually used. The boats are normally sailed by their owners or by professional sailors on the match- racing tour, and were challenging and great fun to sail.

Bocconi spent the regatta at the head of the fleet along with the boats from MIP and INSEAD:  The three shared the first three places in all six raceswith Bocconi’s four first places and a third sealing the win with 7 points.  INSEAD and MIP both ended the regatta on 10 points with 3 seconds, a third and a first. MIP getting second place on countback by coming second in the last race.

LBS and Warwick battled it out for 4th and 5th place, with Warwick winning the battle on countback. RSM brought up the rear.

In Division B, which were all Bavaria 42 cruising boats with gennekers,  LBS won the regatta controversially, after winning protests against MIP and the University of Athens for poling out their genoas with boathooks. LBS won with three first places a second and a fourth, despite being disqualified for hitting the committee boat in race 1.   AUEB came in second with a win and four second places.  MIP were third.

Division A

Division B

1. The Global MBA Trophy Regatta in Athens

27 – 29 April.  Details here

2. The Alumni Business Cup (ABC) Regatta in La Trinite Sur Mer, France

6 – 9 June. Details here

3. The Cranfield Regatta in The Solent, England

6 – 8 July. Details here

4. The RSM Regatta,in Lemmer, The Netherlands

24 – 26 August. Details here

5. The Rolex MBAs Cup, in Santa Margharita Ligure, Italy

27 – 30 September.  Details here

The MBA winter regatta was held at Marina Rubicon, Playa Blanca, Lanzerote on 13- 14 January 2012.  It was organised by Brendan Laing of London Business School. Teams raced six windward- leeward races in the bay off Marina Rubicon in strong winds (25 – 30 knots for most of the weekend). The boats were Sunsail’s Beneteau F40s.

Teams from Manchester, LBS (with 3 boats), RSM, IE and Bath took part.

London Business School 1 came second, having been second in five races and first in the last one.

The MBA Winter regatta does not form part of the MBA Sailing League in 2012, but the organisers hope to repeat it next year and to join the league in 2014.

Apart from their 7th in Italy, Insead’s league victory came with a  first place at the Cranfield regatta, third at the ABC regatta and 4th at the GMT regatta.

With a third place in Santa Margharita, Warwick are the joint biggest climbers, going 6 places up the rankings to 5th, behind MIP, who were not able to race in the Rolex MBA’s Regatta.  Also climbing six places are second place Columbia – up to 13th and winners Sauder, now equal 18th.

The top ten of the league is rounded out by Rotterdam who, along with Insead and LBS attended all four regattas this year, coming in 9th. It also hasfour British teams who did well in the Cranfield regatta. Manchester come 6th with good scores at both Cranfield and Bocconi, Cranfield Glasgow and Henly make it in with just their top scores at Cranfield.

Winning the MBA’s cup takes luck and skill: Luck to choose the right boat, allocated by lottery at the start of the weekend, and skill to take advantage of having the right boat. The regatta consists of an “A” division of 19 boats, racing with spinnakers and a “B” division of  of 24 boats racing without spinnakers.

The losing semi- finalists in the A division were Warwick and IESE, with Warwick coming 3rd, having won the petit- final. The B division was won by the home team, SDA Bocconi.

Division A consisted of two fleets: 12 Benneteau 36.7s and 7 Jeanneau Sunfast 37s. The top two boats in each fleet are chosen to match- race for the title. Among the Benneteau’s, Columbia, Sauder and Bocconi did well in the boat lottery, and pulled off positions 1, 2 and 3, in boats that had all been in the top three at least once in 2009 and 2010 as well as this year.  In the Sunfasts, Warwick picked the 2010 winner out of the hat and managed to sail it to another win in 2011.  Meanwhile, at the bottom of the fleet, RSM and Kellogg came home in 11th and 12 in boats that hadn’t previously finished above 10th in the regatta.

Final Results: Division A

Match Racing

1. Sauder

2. Columbia

3. Warwick

4. IESE

Benneteau 36.7

Jeanneau Sunfast 37

Final Results: Division B

Anything is, of course possible at the MBA’s cup, for two reasons: Firstly, because teams in the “A” racing division must be comprised mainly of students currently at the business school they are representing. This means that may be very different crews competing than at other regattas, where school Alumni compete. Secondly, because of the variable quality of the boats in the fleet, which mean that a great team may end up with a particularly slow boat and be consigned to the lower reaches of the results.

The Rolex MBA’s Conference & Regatta, to give it its full name, starts on Thursday 22nd September, with the first race on Friday 23rd. It has been taking place since the mid 2000s and gets bigger every year: over 50 boats participated in 2010. The regatta has 2 divisions: An “A” division, competing with spinnakers in either Benneteau First 36.7s or Jeanneau Sunfast 37s, and a “B” division, competing under handicap without spinnakers in a variety of charter boats. Both divisions race on Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th. The winners of the Beneteau fleet and of the Jeanneau fleet then face off in match races on Sunday 25th, to decide the regatta champion.

1. Jeroen Gijzen (RSM)
2. Ina Spiess (Kelogg/WHU)
3. Klaus Rasmussen (LBS)
4. Chris Best (Warwick)
5. Johannes Francisco (IE)
6. Peter Cortie (RSM)
7. Johannes Vriesendorp (RSM)
8. Wendy Frigge (RSM)
9. Yannis Pagoulatos (RSM)

By winning the Cranfield regatta, Insead climb to the top of the rankings, where they lead by two points from Bocconi , who were third at Cranfield.

London Business School trail by 13 points in third, badly affected by their poor showings in Sta Margharita and Rhodes, while Cranfield and MIP round out the top 5.

Previously top ranked Warwick drop out of the top 5 altogether with their 22 in the Cranfield regatta.

Glasgow make a strong showing, at 8 after their first MBA Sailing regatta. Aberdeen, Ashridge, Portsmounth and Oxford Said drop out of the rankings, having not competed since Cranfield 2010.