Report from Alice Schmid:
Ida Lewis was one of our first regattas outside of California without parents, so we weren’t sure what to expect. I traveled along side SDYC coach Beka Schiff and my teammate Sammie Gardner. Sammie and I have just recently entered the world of double handed sailing, experimenting in C420s, 29ers CFJs and most recently I420s. We took off Tuesday July 24, very early in the morning and after 5 hours in the air we arrived in Cleveland, Ohio.
The next morning we woke up at 6:30, got ready fast and took a 5 minute walk to the yacht club. The first two days are clinics, and the remaining two days, you have the opportunity to apply what you learned during race days. There was a range of conditions from 3 knots of wind and big choppy waves, to 18 knots and big gradual wind waves. We hadn’t practiced much in heavy air, so that was a bit of a challenge for us, but we eventually we started getting the hang of moving around through the waves.
After the second day of sailing, everyone noticed a huge front coming in from the lake, and started to prepare the boats for wind and rain. We tied everything down tight, and ran home before we got too wet. When we returned for dinner we were greeted with news that the boats had been blown over and some of the masts were bent, and other damage had been done to the boats by the storm. But we just had to sit tight and wait until there was no more lighting to go check on the boats.
Ida lewis was an incredible adventrue that we hope to repeat in the future. We finished in 22nd overall, which we were proud of, as we were the youngest team. We had tons of fun and learned alot, we met new people and got to race and practice with people who are at a much higher level then us. We hope to continue sailing together and keep improving through clinics and practices like this one.
Report from Samantha Gardner:
Ida lewis was so fun from the flight, great sailing, and really nice people. Alice and I we very fortunate to have the yacht club fund our trip. The day we arrived to the Cleveland airport we were driven to Mentor Yacht Club. Then we were assigned to our host family. We got to check out our boats and introduce ourselves to some of the other girls there.
The next day was the first day of the clinic and it was really fun started off the day with breakfast at the yacht club then rigid our boats witch were in great condition. After nice day of sailing we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Day two of the clinic we had a long day of sailing that followed with a great debrief and a luau themed dinner. A front went through right around dinner time and knocked over some of the boats, everyone was alright though.
Regatta Day One we had a nice race day with good wind. And italian dinner with our host families. Along with a amazing power talk to finish off the day. Race Day two was a long race day with decent wind and a nice dinner with hearing from an expert strength coach, and then enjoyed an amazing yoga session on east beach. The last day was a three race day. We had a long day on the water and ended it with the trophy ceremony and dinner.
Alice and I met so many nice people and made new friends on this trip that we will know forever. We finished in the top half. We were 20th out of 40 boats. We were pretty happy with the result because this was out first Ida Lewis regatta.