I flew to Rhode Island to compete in the US Sailing Youth Championship with my partner Holland Vierling. The flight was 6 hours, which I flew alone to NYC. Then Holland’s mom Sabrina drove us to Roger Williams College in Rhode Island. We stayed in the Roger Williams dorm which was amazing because I had the unique opportunity to live like a college student. Similar to college life I made some great new sailing friends from Canada, who I plan to meet up with in the future. On our days off, we traveled to Boston and explored many Universities including Boston College, Harvard and MIT.
The first two days of racing definitely lived up to my expectations with wind gusts of up to 25 mph wreaking havoc on competitors, boats, and equipment. Thankfully, we were ready with spare equipment that we are able to use and lend to our competitors. Throughout the four day competition we improved each day and finished in 8th place out of 26 teams.
The overall experience at Roger Williams was amazing for two fourteen year olds. I am incredibly grateful to my parents and SDYC for their support and Sabrina Vierling for being my chaperone. Holland and I are already planning our return for next year’s Youth Champs!
We had the great opportunity to travel to Chicago, Illinois to compete in the Club 420 National Championship on Lake Michigan July 7 – 9. On our day of practice, we had 12-16 knots of breeze with 4-5 foot chop. We had never sailed the C420 in waves that big before. It was very challenging but an amazing learning experience. The regatta showed very hard sailing conditions with short and steep Lake Michigan waves combined with light winds to make tough racing. With really tough competition and challenging conditions there was a lot to learn and improve through the whole trip. Our best finish was a third on the last race. We want to thank comp fund for allowing us to always be improving and compete at this level.
Two weeks spent training and racing in Hog Island Bay for the 29er National Championships as well as the US Youth Championships brought a wide variety of conditions and great learning opportunities for our whole team. Carly Keiding, my skipper from SBYC and I have been together in the boat for about a year. 29er Nationals, sailed out of Roger Williams University’ beautiful boat house brought light wind and flat water, pushing us to focus on current and boat speed on the course. Following Nationals we had a few days of more light air training between the two events.
Every winter, women head to Southern California for a weekend of one-design racing
It was fast, it was frenetic, and it was fun. The Women’s Winter Invitational Regatta brought 26 teams from across the United States and Canada, plus one from Brazil, to the San Diego Yacht Club in February.
“It was the best organized chaos I’ve ever seen and absolutely a blast,” said Kaci Yachechak-Gibbs, who traveled to the competition from North Flathead Yacht Club in Montana.
The final of four events in the 2023 Etchells West Coast Spring Series was the US Nationals/Orca Bowl, held this weekend, May 19-21, at the San Diego Yacht Club. Twenty-two boats, including several teams back from the World Championship, competed over three days. Jim Cunningham’s Lifted finished the regatta with another win under their belt – securing them the overall winners of the West Coast Spring Series.
This weekend, the Etchells fleet sailed the Bill Bennett Cup, the third regatta in the Etchells West Coast Spring Series. Team Louise (Tom Carruthers, Bill Hardesty, Jeff Reynolds) finished first in the regatta, winning a 10-point tie with The Martian (Marvin Beckmann, Ezra Culver, Eddie Adams). Reposada (Steve Wright, Joe Erskine, Joe Markee) was the winning Corinthian team.