I would like to thank the SDYC Competition Fund in supporting my first regatta outside of California. To be able to travel to the East coast and compete in a very competitive fleet while representing my yacht club at the Valentine’s Day Regatta was a great experience.
As part of the Saint Petersburg Yacht Club and SDAYC exchange program I was selected this year to host an individual from Saint Petersburg Yacht Club in Florida for the Junior Commodore Regatta here in the fall. Since there are no sabots in Florida the person my family hosted came to sail her first time in a Sabot, and when her family hosted me in Florida I was introduced to the Optimist class for the first time.
The Valentine's Day Regatta was a two day event, with winds forecasted on the heavy side for the beginning of day one, but dying down as the day went on. After stepping in an Opti for the first time I had only a moment to sail it away from the docks before the forty-five minute tow out began. Tampa bay was a whole lot larger than any sabot venue, almost ten times the size of San Diego Bay. The first race of the day was sailed with almost eight knots, but had died since the very beginning of the day. The races were sailed with two color flights at once, so there was about 94 boats on the start line, and 189 total. Compared to the about maximum of thirty boats at once on a line in the Sabot, it was quite the start, and the courses were also twice as long as any Sabot course. Two races were completed the first day, with the wind dying gradually to about three knots from the starting eleven knots when we first towed out. I came out with a 90th place finish, and improving slightly to an 82nd place finish. After those races I realized how different the Optimists were from the sabots.
Day two involved postponement for an hour or two before achieving two final races in very light breeze, about four knots, building only during the second half of the last race to around seven knots. I scored in with an 84th and 93rd, not favoring the light wind. Overall, I came in 185th.
After sailing my first, and probably last, days in an Opti I began to realize why Sabots are considered a better learning/training boat than Optimists. The main differences between the Sabot and Opti were the centerboard instead of a leeboard, a sprit to help hold the sail up, and the mainsheet being positioned on the floor of the boat. As for the sailing, Optimists severely underperform when sailing behind other boats in their bad air, compared to Sabots which can stay near the boat ahead of them. Weight also makes a substantial difference, even more than in a Sabot. Most of the sailors who trophied in the Opti were under 70 pounds, where in a sabot you would see a much broader weight range in the trophies.
Overall, it was a neat experience to travel out of the state and sail in a new boat and fleet, and get to see what it was like on the other side of the country. I never expected there to be as many differences as there were between the Opti and the Sabot. Again, this trip would have not been completed if it were not for the SDYC Competition Fund, so thank you for supporting me in my first Opti regatta.
Sincerely,
Charles Lindsay