The weekend before Halloween, the Saint Francis Yacht Club hosted the 2024 Fall Dinghy Regatta. It was an incredible experience on so many levels and one of the biggest experiences for me and my new 29er partner, August Felgenhaur. August and I just recently began to sail together. In fact, we’ve teamed for the entire 24/25 29er Hamlin Series and this was our first ever regatta sailing as a team.
For this regatta, we worked with each other to set two goals:
For our first ever regatta, we were so fortunate that it was in beautiful San Francisco - known for extreme sailing conditions. That written, on Saturday, the conditions were similar to San Diego. It was sunny, warm and we had amazing visibility with light winds. In fact, we were postponed for almost three hours due to wind conditions. Once the wind picked up and the race committee deemed conditions fit enough to sail, we were off.
Sunday, the conditions were more in line with what people think, when they think of San Francisco. It was cold, very foggy and we had limited visibility. After our skippers meeting, we were sent to the bay. However, when we got on the water, the wind still hadn’t come in yet and we got postponed for another hour. Finally, the wind built up and the races began. As the day went on, the wind got heavier and heavier.
August and I are the lightest 29er team on the west coast . Because of our weight, we needed to truly strategize how we tune the boat - it is like a puzzle for us - a puzzle we solved. With the fresher breeze on Sunday we were able to plane, specifically on the down winds with the spinnaker up, and we were sailing so fast, loving every minute of it.
That weekend was a great learning curve for us as a new team. We learned how to work together and one of the biggest things we learned was to work as a team on and off the water, especially around how we communicate with each other. We are so grateful to have the support of our families, teammates and coaches. Both August and I had a ton of fun getting to know each other and creating shared sailing experiences. We look forward to becoming better sailors together in the future and over the course of the Hamlin series.
We would like to give special thanks to Noah Nyenhuis our coach, JJ Fetter for all her support and everything she does for HPYS. The support of the SDYC Competition Fund and the membership all make this possible for us, a wonderful opportunity to represent the San Diego Yacht Club.