2019’s Christmas Orange Bowl Youth Regatta, at the Coral Reef Yacht Club in Florida, was a 3-and-a-half-day event.  We both competed in Blue Fleet, after two days of practicing with the local clinic.  It was a different experience than what we are generally used to in sailing sabots, yet the water was certainly much warmer!  One day at the clinic, under the guise of our wonderful instructor Spencer was a sight to see. A flash flood had hit, and the entire Yacht Club was flooded in a foot of water--up to the bottom of the car doors, but in typical Florida fashion the CRYC had dried everything out by the afternoon. During the regatta, we had a very rough time due to the larger waves and stronger wind you don’t usually encounter as much in sabots in California. The wind would also shift regularly on the course - adding to our troubles. The course was a mile or more offshore, which we were not expecting. Overall, however, we both progressed as time moved on. We were a bit disappointed that we missed a couple of races - we were challenged by different racing conditions - but we did not let that ruin our regatta. It was both of our first times racing optimists - while we didn’t perform to our expectations in the event, we feel it was an incredible experience that completely transformed our view on sailing as a sport and also on competitive racing. 

The 2019 Orange Bowl Regatta hosted by Coral Reef Yacht Club was a great event and a fun learning experience. I competed in this event with my crew and fellow SDYC junior sailor, Sara Parker. We flew out to this event on Christmas day connecting through Dallas on our way to Miami, Florida. We got to the event and met up with our coach and worked on our charter boat and got to sorting out our settings. We headed out to practice and were greeted by 12-15 Kts of breeze. This was my first time sailing on Biscayne Bay and it is very different to sailing in Southern California, it is a very open venue with Key Biscayne on the top edge of the course and is windier than here. We sailed in a typical easterly breeze the whole event.

Without a long wind delay this morning, all three classes were able to get some racing in 9 knots that built to about 15-16 knots by mid-afternoon. After four races in the 49erFX and Nacra classes, Paris Henken (Coronado, Calif.) and Anna Tobias are leading the 49erFX fleet, and Riley Gibbs (Long Beach, Calif.) and Anna Weis (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) are in third in the Nacra 17 fleet.

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. 

This past June, three of my friends and I competed in the 2019 Youth Match Racing Championship, commonly known as the Rose Cup. We were excited for many aspects of it, first and foremost it was hosted by SDYC and would be raced at city front, which made everything surrounding the event much easier. Also, it was a reunion of sorts, as “B” Lindsay who had moved to Florida almost ten years ago, was back for the summer. Jack Plavan, Matt Dorgan, and I all grew up sailing with her so it was very cool to have us all four on a boat together. For me personally, I was also very excited as it was my first major match racing regatta as a skipper.

My brother Jack and I met in early October in Stamford, CT at the Stamford Yacht Club to compete at US Sailing’s Annual Championship of Champions. As the name indicates, it is the collection of champions from various North American and US National championship regattas. 

Sailors ranged across many classes and SDYC was well represented with Jack and I, as US 29er Nationals winners along with Kelly Holthus, Open Bic NA winner sailing with Bill Hardesty.

Congrats to the Pointers on an excellent 2nd Place finish among 24 team from around the country at last weekend's PCISA Girls Invitational. Full Results

Check out these great shots from markset hero, Coach Jack Egan!

Congratulations to Junior Commodore Piper Holthus and the entire Junior Board on a fun and successful Junior Invitational Regatta! The 2019 event included a Radial fleet of five boats, which together with Sabots brought the regatta to 102 boats, cresting the century mark for the first time in many years.

Conditions were challenging on both our La Playa and "outside" Shoal courses; with shifty winds, massive ebbing current in the bay, and kelp paddies snagging boats in both locations.