42ND ANNUAL GOVERNOR’S CUP:

NEWPORT BEACH — Through 13 races at the 42nd annual Governor’s Cup, Newport Harbor Yacht Club was perfect.

Two more victories and skipper Michael Menninger’s name would go in the record books. Only seven other skippers have won the event twice.

Menninger was on his way to winning it for the second straight year until Newport Harbor lost for the first time.

It was the wrong time to drop a race.

The best-of-three finals had just begun against Cruising Yacht Club of Australia on Sunday.

One more loss and Newport Harbor would finish second in the oldest youth match racing regatta in the country.

Doubt set in with the three-man crew, which included middleman Cole Hatton and bowman Chris Barnard. Newport Harbor trailed before in races.

Now Newport Harbor had to win two in a row to capture the Governor’s Cup trophy again.

“We just wanted to win one to stay alive,” Menninger said.

Newport Harbor pulled together, winning by a 15-foot margin in the second race. The decisive one wasn’t as close.

Newport Harbor claimed the Governor’s Cup in Menninger’s last year as skipper.

“I’m glad we won,” said Menninger, who next year will be 20, making him too old to compete in future Governor’s Cup events. “This was a little bit harder than last year’s championship.”

During Menninger’s title run, only three times has Newport Harbor lost a race.

Menninger, a 2007 Newport Harbor High graduate now at St. Mary’s College in Maryland, said it is impossible to sail flawlessly during a four-day event.

Hatton, a 2007 Newport Harbor grad, blamed one of last year’s losses on something other than the crew’s abilities.

“We’re going to blame that on like the massive [seaweed] we had on our keel,” said Hatton before the finals.

The path to the finals proved to be easy for Newport Harbor. In the semifinals, it won the first two races to sweep Royal Yachting Assn. of the United Kingdom.

Cruising Yacht Club of Australia swept Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron to advance to the finals.

Despite not being able to dethrone the defending champ, Australia, with skipper Will Ryan, bettered last year’s third-place finish at the Governor’s Cup.

Royal Yachting Assn. took third, followed by New Zealand, Southern Yacht Club of New Orleans, and St. Thomas Yacht Club of the U.S. Virgin Islands placed sixth.

Host Balboa Yacht Club finished ninth in the 12-team competition.

“The Aussies were good sports after we won,” said Menninger, whose father Bill Menninger steered the Los Angeles Yacht Club to the Governor’s Cup title in 1973, making the two the only father-son duo to win the event.

“We hung out with them afterward and they were really cool.”

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at david.carrillo@latimes.com.