Earlier in February, my skipper Anton Schmid and I traveled to Miami for the first of the Youth Worlds Qualifiers (YWQ) in the 29er class, MidWinters East (MWE).
We arrived on the Thursday before the regatta for a practice day. We towed out to the ocean from Miami Yacht Club, the host for the event, where we were met with 7-10 knots and a really big chop. We had a productive warm up session with our SDYC training partners Alice Schmid and Sammie Gardener, as well as Noah and Ian Nyenhuis.
The YWQ’s are two regattas this year. This regatta, MWE, and MidWinters West (MWW) at the end of March in Long Beach. Different from the way regatta scoring most often works by totaling all races, the US Representative Team in 29ers at Youth Worlds 2022 this summer will be the team with the lowest total combining the finish positions at both MWE & MWW. Additionally, the MWW finish position will break any ties between teams.
Back to Miami and MWE. The first day of the regatta was extremely light. Just 5-7 knots with the big chop still on the race course, which was held throughout the event. After a long postponement, we sailed second races, with a weak, but stable seabreeze. We won the first race on the water, but learned that we were U Flagged when we got in, which was a huge setback, after finishing 3rd in the second race, sailing a great day. The first race U flag meant that we needed to sail the rest of the regatta knowing our “throw out” race had already been spent, putting pressure on us to sail clean the rest of the regatta..
The second day brought 14-17 knots on the course, and we were able to sail another strong day, with the pressure of knowing any mistakes would impact our position significantly.. We finished day two climbing into second, with the ability to drop the U-flag score. We felt good about the day, using our speed to drag race out to the favored left edge of the course.
The last day of the regatta was set up very similarly to the second day. Slightly lighter, about 10-14 knots, but the big chop remained a challenge, and a very similar frontal wind direction, more to the North than the first day. We won the first race, using good upwind speed and a few smart decisions around the course. We finished the day with a 1-2-3-3 scoreline, closing in on first, finishing just 5 points out. The last race of the day was the most interesting - a huge right shift and pressure change was extremely different from anything we had seen earlier in the regatta. We rounded the top mark near last and made a few good decisions to claw our way up to third. It was a huge comeback that drew us closer to first.
Overall, we sailed a great regatta, finishing with a second overall and bringing a two into MWW. We had tons of fun!
Thanks to SDYC Competition Fund and the HPYS for the continued support, as we push hard for a win at Midwinters West in a few weeks!