By Jack Reiter
The 2015 C420 North Americans was the last major regatta in the C420 circuit. It consisted of 75+ boats hosted by Sail NC in Manteo, North Carolina. My crew Jack Joslin and I have been training for this event all summer long. We boarded our Southwest flight early in the morning of August 11th. After a stop in Baltimore, we finally arrived in Norfolk ready for a two hour drive to Nags Head. Once we got to our hotel both Jack and I were tired and anxious for the rest of the week.
We arrived at the venue which was an old aiport and went to our charter company’s trailer to get our boats. We slowly rigged our boat making sure everything was the way we wanted. After we felt everything was up to par we went out onto the water for a short practice only to find that the venue was the shiftiest place I’ve sailed at. After our practice we came in ready for the regatta to begin.
Day 1 was light and shifty but sailable. We sailed three races throughout the day and posted some bad scores. We didn’t have the day we wanted to. Our thoughts of the breeze patterns throughout the day didn’t work. We sailed in after the third race fired up for the next day.
Day 2 showed a little more breeze earlier in the day which resulted in four great races. With the breeze topping at 14 knots, our boat excelled because of our training in breezy conditions. We posted better scores which moved us up to seventeenth. After race four we sailed in with smiles on our faces after we had improved drastically.
Day 3 and 4 were the same breeze wise. Shifty and capping at a solid 2 knots the regatta was held on postponement for the two days. After the fourth day we stayed in 17th place overall in the regatta. We sailed in then derigged and gave the boat back to the boat charters. We helped our friends load their boats and headed to the trophy presentation to congratulate the winners. After trophies we, Jack and I, said goodbye to our new and old friends before driving to Norfolk.
My crew and I, Jack Joslin, wouldn’t have been able to go to this event without the generous support of the SDYC Competition Fund. It has made our dream of sailing this event become a reality as we plan on representing Team SDYC throughout the rest of our junior sailing years. Thanks again for your support!