Last week (July 16 thru 21), my crew comprised of Johannes McElvain, Wade Waddell, and I traveled to Balboa Yacht Club to race in the 52nd Annual Governors Cup regatta. The regatta attracted twelve of the top youth match racers from around the world to compete for the prestigious Governor's Cup trophy. This year's event was heralded by many of the organizers as "the toughest" Governors Cup in history, as well as the top youth match race regatta in the world. The invitational regatta featured multiple top 50 ranked sailors, as well as the current #1 ranked match racer in the world. With such a competitive fleet, my team and I were excited to match up against the world’s best. The regatta was comprised of a practice day and opening ceremony followed by five long days of racing sailed off of the Newport pier. It was our teams first match race regatta sailed together, and my third Governors Cup as a competitor.

On Friday, July 20, over 150 sailors, both junior and senior, from several Southern California clubs celebrated the 46^th annual Dutch Shoe Marathon with a long, fun race from San Diego Yacht Club to Coronado Yacht Club in sabots.

On June 22-24, 5-time U.S. Match Racing National Champion Dave Perry led an advanced S.O.D.A. youth match racing clinic, sponsored by North U, at the San Diego Yacht Club. Nine of the top teams in the U.S. trained hard for two and a half days in the Club’s J/22’s.

I recently travelled to Hong Kong for the 2018 29er World Championships. I had the privilege of being selected for the US Sailing Travel Team for the event. The regatta proved to be very action-packed at times and not so much at others. For the six day event, we had two days of racing when the Race Committee did not allow sailing due to too much breeze, with gusts into the forties as recorded by the race committee on those days. The other four days included one very light and three very windy days. Two of the very windy days were gusting into the thirties while the other only included only one race because it got so windy while we were out on the water that they had to send us in. The race committee recorded a gust of fifty knots on that day. It was complete carnage!  I did not achieve the result I was hoping for at this event, however, the extreme conditions and world class competition allowed me to gain so much experience and knowledge. The experience of travelling to another country and competing against the world’s best was amazing and is something I will never forget. I’d like to thank the SDYC Competition Fund for the continued support in my quest for excellence.

San Diego Yacht Club will host the Pacific Coast Interscholastic Sailing Association's (PCISA) Girls Invitational from October 21-22, 2017. This regatta is an all-girls event that draws high school teams from all across the country to participate. There will be 21 teams participating in the 2017 running of the event, with 15 of those teams traveling to San Diego from out of town.

The only one of its kind in the country, the Girls Invitational was first held in the spring of 2010. Race organizers held it again in October 2010, and it has been held in the fall every year since. This event was founded by SDYC member and former College All-American Sailor for the United States Naval Academy, Mary Brigden Snow.

For the past two weeks, we've been training at Oakcliff in Long Island, NY. During this focussed time in the 49er, we've had the chance to practice by ourselves, practice with other 49er Olympic hopefuls, and compete. We've sailed two regattas since being here and have performed well. You can find results here. 

Looking forward into the next few weeks, we'll be doing a bit of training in Southern California and Miami in October, followed by a month long training trip to Australia in November. We're really excited for the opportunity to travel to Australia, where we'll be spending time in Sydney and Melbourne training and competing. Keep reading to see how you can help support us in the coming weeks.

This August I sailed three regattas in a row in Kingston, Ontario. The three regattas being: Laser Canadian Championships, CORK Internationals, and CORK Olympic Classes Regatta. The Olympic Classes Regatta was the longest with 5 days of racing, but had the smallest radial fleet with only 6 boats. The second largest regatta was the Laser Canadian Championships with about 68 boats and 3 days of racing. Finally, the largest regatta was the CORK Internationals with a total of 135 boats. To get to the regatta we drove 40 hours across the United States, and when we got there we were greeted by an attractive city next to the water. The launch site was a beautiful place with Queen’s College right beside it.

The 2017 Zhik 29er World Championships were held very close to home this year in Long Beach.  Alamitos Bay Yacht Club hosted sailors from 16 countries and 130 boats gathered on the beach.  Close to the event, I was presented with an opportunity to sail with a girl from New Zealand named Greta Stewart.

After getting all of the last minute logistics organized in order to sail with Greta, the boat measured in and we were ready to go for the event. Greta arrived the night of the Opening Ceremony and just before the first day of racing. Greta and I had the chance to sail for for just a bit inside the harbor that evening.