Leroy broke through this year, defeating American Genny Tulloch to capture the championship of the prestigious international women's match racing regatta.

Marie Riou served as tactician for Leroy, a native of Nantes, France who has been No. 1 in the World Match Race Rankings since 2004. Elodie Bertrand and Claire Pruvot completed the crew.

"It feels good. This is one of the top events in the world and we are very happy to finally win," Leroy said.

Light and fluky winds plagued the 18th annual BoatU.S. Santa Maria Cup, a Grade I event hosted by Eastport Yacht Club. Principal race officer Mark Murphy had to get in one last flight yesterday morning in order to complete the first round robin. In most years, two round-robin sessions are finished by Friday so the semifinals and finals can be held on Saturday.

It was four straight days of frustration as yesterday brought no relief. An unstable northwesterly dropped out and forced organizers to wait several hours to begin the semifinals. Leroy beat San Francisco skipper Liz Baylis in the only race that was held in one semifinal. However, the breeze was too shaky to start any races in the other semi between Tulloch and Australian Katie Spithill.

"We started several sequences, but the wind was never above three knots long enough to get a race going," Murphy bemoaned.

Due to time constraints, the semifinals were cut short with Tulloch earning a berth in the final based on her record in the round robin.

Leroy got a better start and won the opening race of the final fairly convincingly. Tulloch's team committed two fouls during the second race, but cleared both and rebounded to get within a few boat lengths of Leroy at the finish.

"Congratulations to Claire. She is a great skipper and her team out-sailed us today," said Tulloch, the Quantum Female Sailor of the Year as a senior at Harvard who now resides in Tiburon, Calif.

Leroy, whose lone loss came to Baylis, won 10 straight races to finish the regatta. She praised the performance of her crew, which has remained the same since 2004.

"This was good practice for light air. It took a lot of patience and concentration," said Leroy, who will seek her third world championship this July in Sweden.

Eastport Yacht Club's top-notch race committee did the best it could in trying conditions, which Murphy called "the most challenging I've seen in 20 years" of running regattas off Annapolis.

"The conditions were highly unusual for Annapolis this time of the year. Nothing fit into the normal pattern," Murphy said.

BoatU.S. Santa Maria Cup

Final Round-Robin Standings

Claire Leroy, Nantes, France, 8-1

Genny Tulloch, Tiburon, Cal., 6-3

Katie Spithill, Sydney, Australia, 6-3

Liz Baylis, San Francisco, Cal., 6-3