On May 7, Rye Country Day School hosted the Ryan B. Mahoney Memorial Regatta at American Yacht Club. The annual event, established in 2016, honors Mahoney, a RCDS alumnus, passionate sailor, and proud Wildcat.
Following graduation from RCDS in 1998, Ryan attended Dartmouth College and was a member of the sailing team. He went on to represent the United States in the International 420 Class World Championships on three occasions, competing in Australia, Belgium, and Newport, RI. In 2012, at the age of 31, Ryan died from complications of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
The 2025 race marked the largest Ryan B. Memorial Regatta since the event’s founding and one of the largest high school regattas hosted by the American Yacht Club. In the c420 fleet, RCDS won first, second, and fourth place out of 14 boats. The Wildcats also sailed well in the FJ fleet, finishing third among seven teams.
The event was especially meaningful for sophomore Zack Wirth, a member of the RCDS varsity sailing team and nephew of Mahoney, who competed in honor of his late uncle. This is Wirth’s third year sailing in the Ryan B. Mahoney Memorial Regatta, and he is proud to carry on his uncle’s legacy on the water.
Wirth is the son of Melissa Mahoney Wirth, a 1997 RCDS graduate, who founded the regatta in memory of her brother. Zack’s grandparents are Daniel and Susan Mahoney, who raised their family in Rye and are multi-generational members of American Yacht Club, where all three of their children sailed.
