This year the Youth Champs Regatta was located in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. It was four days with many kinds of boats including the Laser Full Rig, Laser Radial, i420, 29ner, Nacra, and windsurfers. I was sailing Laser Radials, but it was great seeing friends from all of the other fleets as well as mine. It made it difficult though when we started because of how the Radials needed to wait for the i420s and the Full Rigs to start before us.
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 46th annual Dutch Shoe Marathon with a long, fun race from San Diego Yacht Club to Coronado Yacht Club in sabots.
The 2018 Kettenburg and Classic Yacht Regatta, co-hosted by the Ancient Mariner Sailing Society and San Diego Yacht Club for the 6th year, saw high wind and higher waves at the start of the race this past Saturday, June 23. The event started in the smooth, calm waters the day before, Friday, June 22, when twelve classic wooden boats lined up on SDYC’s front dock to show off their vessels in a classic cours’ de elegance boat show. But it was a different kind of show on the way out to the start line Saturday, in the ocean just south of Point Loma. By the 1200 start time, the winds were gusting as high as 20 kts and the sea state an abrupt mix of swell and steep chop – not so elegant.
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.