The Beneteau 36.7 North American Championship was dominated by Chick Pyle's Kea. The team finished the first day of the regatta with a picket fence and never let up from there. Over three days of racing, Kea earned 7 bullets in 9 races - 12 points overall and 22 points ahead of second place finisher Thomas Shepherd on Kraken.
Pyle attributes their great results to clean sailing. "Success comes a lot easier when you have a good start and clear lanes. We had only two good starts out of nine races, so battling through for clear lanes was paramount. Tactician and SDYC Staff Commodore Bill Campbell’s overall strategy is to stay away from other boats and not engage whenever possible. Kea likes to fly in clear air," he explained.
After a year without one of San Diego Yacht Club’s most cherished and anticipated regattas, the Club is excited to welcome twelve legendary Master skippers to vie for victory at the 2021 International Masters Regatta. The event to be held from Thursday, October 21 - Saturday, October 23 will feature three days of competition on San Diego Bay from some very well-known names in sailing. Skippers will be joining us in Southern California from all over the globe: New York, New Zealand, Toronto, Washington, and California.
SDYC's Bruce Golison skippered his J/70 Midlife Crisis with an all-SDYC crew to 2nd place in the J/70 World Championship at Cal Yacht Club this summer. His team was primed with a solid win in the Pre-Worlds last month. One of only two teams to get bullets in the tightly matched Worlds event (along with Magatron), Golison sailed with Steve Hunt, Erik Shampain and Jeff Reynolds.
NEWPORT, R.I. — If it wasn't the lumpy seas, it was the capricious breeze. Wherever sailors competing in the 2021 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup turned today, there was something standing between them and the groove so essential for a solid finish in a competitive fleet: a wave, a shift, a patch of no wind, a trench of disturbed air, a picket fence of competitors on starboard tack. It was one of the most challenging days on the water in the history of this storied event.
But intense pressure creates diamonds and with its back to the proverbial wall, San Diego Yacht Club turned in a gem of a performance, winning both races and saving its hopes of a podium finish after a middling start, by its lofty standards, to the regatta. The runner up from 2019 now sits fourth.
US Sailing has named the 16 athletes that will be representing the US at the 2021 Youth Sailing World Championships. The 50th edition of the premier event in international youth sailing will take place December 11-18 in Al-Mussanah, Oman and is open to athletes under age 19. SDYC's Ian & Noah Nyenhuis will be the Male Skiff (29er) team.
Recently, my brother, Noah, and I went to Valencia, Spain to compete in the 29er Open World Championships. The regatta consisted of 3 days of qualifying and 3 days of final competition. There were 193 boats from many different countries. The week prior to the Worlds, we sailed in a Coaches Regatta. We were happy to have finished second in the small but competitive fleet. The regatta was a good way to judge what the fleet would be like and what the race course was going to most likely be during the World Championships. The experience that we gained from that regatta would go on to help us at the Worlds.