The Fort Worth Boat Club was the lucky host for this year's US Youth Match Race Nationals for the Rose Cup. One would think that in early June, it wouldn't be a hot trip to Texas. In reality, for four days straight, it had reached 103 degrees. This proved to be another challenge for everyone throughout the weekend.
On June 14th, right after Diego Escobar and I got out of school, we met up with the rest of our team, Amanda and John Majernik, and walked throughout San Diego International to catch our 3 o'clock flight. We were lucky enough to be joined by fellow SDYC Team Member Jack Egan on our flight as he too had to finish off his school year. The five of us comfortably traveled to Dallas and then boarded a shuttle that would take us all the way to Fort Worth.
We were then greeted by some of the organizing authority in the parking lot of the boat club before we joined the rest of the competitors in the dining room to listen to the match racing guru, Dave Perry. Dave, like last year, provided coaching to all competitors throughout the weekend, stopping during the quarterfinals to let us all perfect our skills. After our large group dinner and match race discussion, we were released to our houses. Our housing situation was by far the coolest that I have been involved with. We were housed on site in member-owned cabanas. These members graciously opened up their semi-large houses to a bunch of teenage boys. This provided a lot of fun throughout the weekend as two teams shared a cabana. We were lucky enough to share a cabana with the future winners from Balboa.
Day 1 through the Final Day was relatively the same, 7-14 knots coming down the man-made lake. Even though the lake was man-made, it provided for some excellent sailing conditions that really challenged each team. The Round Robin went well for our team as we finished off in 4th going into the Quarterfinals against the Balboa team. Unfortunately for us, we were beaten by the better team during the quarterfinals, but by small margins. Each race against them was very tight all the way up to the finish. After getting knocked out by the Balboa team, we waited on the water for the rest of the "losers" from the quarterfinals in order to race in a 5th-8th place knockout. After two sweeps during the losers bracket, we had secured 5th place overall in the regatta. As the driver, and the one who can make or break a race by the drop of a hat, I was upset at the time for my performance. I then realized how well our team actually performed together which helped soften the entire event. As my high school coach Steve Hunt would say, "Some days you sail really well, but there always could be that one team that sails just a little bit better." This saying perfectly summed up the weekend. With our practices before the event helping us out, we were beaten by another team that sailed just a tiny bit better. I want to thank my entire crew; John and Amanda Majernik, and Diego Escobar, for helping me learn new things throughout the weekend.
I finally would want to thank the SDYC Competition Fund for helping us advance in the rankings going from 6th last year to 5th this year. At an event like this, each team sailing has an equal chance at winning.