The 2001 Rolex International Women’s Keelboat Championship (IWKC), held in Annapolis, Md., September 22-28, was a week of relentlessly tough racing, with the shifty and patchy northwesterlies that blew across Chesapeake Bay testing the mental stamina of 61 J/22 crews. The only one who came close to making the 10-race series look easy was ’95 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year Cory Sertl of Rochester, N.Y., but even she did not take her success for granted.

Sertl’s crew was comprised of two other Rolex Yachtswomen of the Year, Pease Glaser (’00), of Long Beach, Calif., and Susan Taylor (’87), of Annapolis, Md., along with top coach Dina Kowalyshn, also of Annapolis, all joining forces for an assault on a title that skipper Sertl had been trying to claim since 1985 when she won as crew for Newport, R.I.’s Betsy Alison.

Of her success at this intensely competitive one-design regatta, Sertl commented, “It’s great for someone of my age with two children to be able to compete at this level. It’s been wonderful to sail with three great friends this week, and I have to say winning the Rolex regatta is one of the high points of my sailing career.”

Some years back, Sertl had made a longstanding commitment to sail with her good friend Pease Glaser in this regatta, but things kept getting in the way. In 1999, when last this biennial event was held, the problem was preparing for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, where Glaser won a silver medal in the ultra-competitive 470 class.

Sertl made sure of getting Glaser’s commitment for the 2001 Rolex IWKC early in the year. “We’d promised each other that we’d do this regatta together, so we were determined to see that commitment through,” said Sertl. After finishing as the runner-up skipper twice in the Rolex IWKC, Sertl was looking forward to the opportunity of finally winning.

There were plenty of other women with their minds on the same thing, however, including some others who had won as crew and, like Sertl, now wanted the glory of winning at the helm. Carol Cronin of Jamestown, R.I., won crewing for defending champion Pat Connerney of Middletown, R.I., and Nancy Haberland of Annapolis had done the same with Betsy Alison the year before.

Alison, a five-time Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, has dominated this regatta over its 16-year history, but relinquished her usual role of skipper to call tactics and run the cockpit for the new girl on the block, Deneen Demourkas of Santa Barbara, Calif. By comparison with most of the Rolex sailors, Demourkas was relatively new to the sport of sailing. She had only raced for little more than two years, but she had taken to one-design sailing in super-quick time.

The first day of the championship saw the J/22s at their best and their worst. Crews were either surfing at maximum speed downwind or broaching and gybing out of control. Nancy Haberland, however, took the bull by the horns to notch up finish positions of 1-4-4 ahead of Sertl with 2-6-2. A sign of Sertl’s promise came early in the regatta. "We got T-boned by a boat on port tack soon after the first start, so we were forced out to the right to find clear air. But it worked out okay for us, and we pulled up to second in that race," she said.

The Bermudan team skippered by Paula Lewin was new to the J/22 and not all that familiar with fleet racing. Lewin’s expertise lies in the one-on-one intensity of match racing, but she appeared to make the transition to big fleet racing with remarkable ease. She was in third overall after the first day but, like Sertl, her second place in the second race was not without incident. Lewin admitted to gybing too soon for her foredeck crew Leatrice Roman, who fell overboard. "I'm so used to Leatrice being able to respond to any situation that I throw at her, that I was surprised when she didn't come through that one,” said Lewin. “At least she didn't let go and got back on board quickly."

Connerney relished the tough conditions with a 10-3-1 on Monday, but she would suffer in the subsequent lighter winds. The defending champion eventually finished tenth in this regatta.

The next four days saw the fleet battle it out in predominantly light to moderate conditions. The only thing that was consistent about the breeze was that it was inconsistent in the extreme, with big holes and massive shifts setting the fleet up for a game of “Chutes & Ladders.”

Day two proved the beginning of Haberland’s undoing and the beginning of Sertl’s unwavering dominance in the seemingly unpredictable conditions. Demourkas clearly felt more at home, winning the first of the light-wind races by some margin. Betsy Alison said her team’s success came down to patience. “We were patient with the shifts, and we were patient with the gusts,” she said. “We were happy to let things come to us and they did in that race.”

On day three Sertl notched up a 4-1 scoreline while all her major opposition had suffered at least one result in the 20s or even 30s. Perhaps one factor in her success was the free tactical role given to Glaser. "Normally I'd share in the trimming of the sails,” said Glaser, “but this week, the way we've arranged our crew, I'm freed up to look around at the wind and the other boats all the time. This leaves Cory and the rest of the team to focus on boatspeed, and it loads the tactical pressure onto me.”

Their stunning consistency was also loading the pressure onto the other leading sailors. Haberland commented: "I usually like those shifty conditions, but today we just weren't getting it. It's time to start taking some risks."

Olympic Bronze Medallist Courtenay Dey, of Westerly, R.I., had a similar day to Haberland and was hitting some corners hard to try to get back into the fight. “I'm normally a more conservative sailor, but if I see a risk for a potential big gain, then I'll certainly take it," she said.

Sertl’s position of dominance, by contrast, allowed her to take a conservative approach to day four. It was a case of “if you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs” as Sertl sailed off to a solid 7-3 to win the regatta with a race to spare.

Glaser was delighted with the way the team had kept their cool. "It was easy to lose your head at this regatta, seeing other boats sail 30 degrees higher than you in totally different wind. But the key was to work with what you had and be patient. It was a lot like the Sydney Games where it paid to have the same approach. The Games were very stressful, and I think once you have dealt with those high-stress situations you are better equipped to cope with them the next time.”

Sertl and company opted to sit out the final day’s race, choosing instead to watch their friends and rivals lug it out for the other podium positions. Carol Cronin was lying second overnight and stamped her authority on the fleet in Sertl’s absence, taking the final winner’s gun by a healthy margin in another race fraught with yet more shifty conditions.

Only Lewin broke the American dominance in the top ten of this regatta, placing third overall, far ahead of her pre-event expectations. “I haven’t done too much fleet racing over the past few years, and we came here with hopes of a top-ten finish,” she said. “After the first couple of days we thought maybe a top five was possible, but to get third here is incredible. The caliber of racing here in Annapolis has been fantastic, we have had a great time.” Lewin intends to return for the 2003 event.

Just behind the Bermudans came a group of three boats who all finished on exactly 56 points for the series. Using the tie-break system, Haberland was awarded fourth place ahead of Annapolis’ Margaret Podlich in fifth and Buffalo, N.Y.’s Jody Swanson in sixth overall.

At the Rolex Gala and Prizegiving, held at host Annapolis Yacht Club, Sertl shocked her fourth crew Dina Kowalyshn, the only non-Rolex Yachtswoman on the team, by giving her the Rolex timepiece she had been awarded for being the victorious skipper.

Based on this year’s enthusiastic response from Sertl and the other 60 competing teams, 2003 and the 10th Rolex International Women’s Keelboat Championship will not come soon enough.