Twenty-six years after he helped lead St. Mary’s College of Maryland to national sailing titles, Anthony Kotoun ’00 has added another to his résumé: the 2026 Melges 24 World Championship.
Kotoun won the title Sept. 19-26 on Little Traverse Bay, in a regatta hosted by the Little Traverse Yacht Club. Sailing his own boat, Wah Gwan (USA 865), he finished with 32 points, 29 better than second-place Shiitake, skippered by Peter Duncan, in a 49-boat fleet. Wah Gwan won three races and clinched the title with a third in Race 11, which meant the team did not need to start the final race. Kotoun’s crew was Grant Janov, Jordan Janov, Franny Schulte and Stuart McNay, according to the sailing press.
Kotoun has won several world championships, but he told the college this one stands apart. Every boat in the fleet sails the same design, and this time the boat was his own. “It’s a dream come true,” he said. “What separates this one is that it’s an iconic design against the best sailors in the world and it was my boat,” according to St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
He gave the college’s sailing program credit for shaping him. Its consistently high-level practices and regattas, he said, “turned me into who I am today,” and he singled out coach Adam Werblow for launching his career. As a student Kotoun led the Seahawks to three national championships in 1999 and 2000 and earned three All-American awards. The college inducted him into its Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016.
He was not the only Seahawk in the hunt. Six St. Mary’s alumni competed in Michigan, and the college says all of them finished in the upper half of the 49-boat fleet. Jeremy Wilmot ’09 and Victor Diaz de Leon ’14 took second and third, Mark Ivey ’99 placed fifth, Kevin Jewett ’95 ninth and Scott Nixon ’93 17th. Ivey, Kotoun’s former teammate and roommate, was among the alumni near the top of the standings, Kotoun noted.
The Worlds are the International Melges 24 Class Association’s marquee event each year, and the college’s sailing ties to Southern Maryland run through the current team as well. This fall the Seahawks have been on the water at the Naval Academy and at their own SMC Open, and the college has recently announced that the 1995 women’s sailing team will headline its 2026 Athletic Hall of Fame class. Earlier this year the Chronicle also reported on two more SMCM alumni who won a World Sailing title in Stockholm.
