Leandro Spina, US Sailing’s Olympic Development Director, who last year was awarded "Developmental Coach of the Year” by the US Olympic Committee, traveled to SDYC last weekend to coach the latest high-performance youth sailing clinic organized by JJ Fetter. 45 youth sailors attended the weekend clinic. Two laser sailors came down from San Francisco. Top 29er and Laser sailors traveled from Santa Barbara, LA and Long Beach plus youth sailors attended from every SD-area club. Seventeen SDYC juniors participated.
Finn Olympic medalist Caleb Paine and former Youth World Champion Giselle Nyenhuis coached the sixteen Laser Radial sailors. The 29ers were coached by former Youth World skipper Neil Marcellini and Olympic skiff coach Willie Mcbride (who left the day after the clinic for New Zealand to coach Olympians Paris Henken and Anna Tunnicliffe at their upcoming World Championships). And the C420s were coached by multiple World Champion and PLHS Head coach Steve Hunt with former C420 National Champion Chuck Eaton. The next high-performance youth clinic at SDYC will be February 1st - 2nd for i420s, 29ers and Laser Radials.