Thursday, February 16th, my crew Tanner Chapko and I boarded our red eye flight to Miami for the annual Club 420 Midwinters. This is one of the major events of the year that houses a ton of competitive teams. This year we both had goals of top five in the 107 boat fleet and staying positive through the three days of intense racing we had ahead of us. With this in mind, we spent the flight thinking of ways we could achieve that goal.

Three SDYC Juniors- Cole Harris, Jack Plavan, and Taisei Hatter- recount their experiences racing in the 2016 Orange Bowl International Youth Regatta hosted by Coral Reef Yacht Club in Miami, FL from December 27-30.

The Georgetown Match Racing Team consisted of A.J. Reiter ’17 (skipper), Roger Dorr '18 (main and spinnaker trimmer), Meaghan MacRae '18 (jib trimmer), and Sean Segerblom '20 (bow). Their coach is Janel Zarkowsky, currently ranked #3 in the U.S. herself. This is Janel’s fifth season of coaching at Georgetown, and her teams have now won three of the last five ICSA Match Race Nationals, and finished third in the other two! The following are excerpts from an interview with the Team after the Championship, by Dave Perry for The Dial Up newsletter.

San Diego Yacht Club is proud to congratulate club members Cole Harris, winner of the Hartley Award as the Junior Yachtsman of the Year, and Joanne O'Dea, winner of the Alonzo de Jessop Memorial Award.

The 2016 College Sailing Match Racing Nationals, hosted by San Diego Yacht Club (SDYC), concluded today on San Diego Bay. After three days of competitive racing, Georgetown University has won the Cornelius Shields Sr. Trophy.

The #3 ranked match racer in the country, Nevin Snow (San Diego, Calif.), may be moving up the rankings following this weekend’s triumphant performance in San Diego at the 2016 U.S. Match Racing Championship. The San Diego native earned his first Prince of Wales Bowl in impressive fashion by winning 17 of 18 races, including a 3-0 win over three-time champion, Dave Dellenbaugh (Easton, Conn.) in Sunday’s Final series. Crewing for Snow was Nick Kaschak (San Diego, Calif.), Alex Curtiss (Lake Bluff, Ill.) and Peter Busch (San Diego, Calif.).

As the final weeks of summer were drawing to an end for others mine was just getting started. For roughly sixteen days, minus two days of break, I was nonstop sailing at three of the most competitive events in junior sailing. The first event was the US Youth Championships held in Coronado, the second was the Chubb US Junior Championships for the Bemis Trophy hosted by Mission Bay Yacht Club, and the final event was the Club 420 North Americans hosted by Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club.

20 Teams from around the country competed for the prestigious BEMIS trophy in the US Sailing Chubb Junior Championship Regatta. Two teams are selected from each US Sailing Area. Cole Harris/Tanner Chapko and Jack Reiter/Dot Obel are the teams that qualified from Area J.