This summer my teammates, Ava Gustafson, Kaya Hancock, and Taylor Ashton, and I went to Lakewood Yacht Club in SeaBrook, Texas to take part in the 2023 Sears Cup Regatta.
Our team was pulled together with the help of our coach, Steve Hunt, and our junior director, Erik Hallback, on the day of a J22 clinic. No other teams signed up so it was an amazing opportunity for us to learn even more about the J22. We practiced for 3 days with our coach and then completed in the US Sailing Area J Sears Cup Triple Handed Qualifier. This local regatta was super fun because we were the only all girls team and coincidentally had a pink spinnaker as well! It was definitely a challenge, but we managed to win first place and qualify for the Sears Cup. On August 9th we flew out to Seabrook, Texas and participated in the one-day clinic held by US Sailing. We were really grateful for this considering our team was only able to practice one time prior to the event. We had some spinnaker issues with raising and dousing it but it was very good practice for the racing to come. We also found out we were the only all girls team again at this event!
The next day was the first day of racing. Unfortunately in our first race we got U-flagged, but the rest of our races that day we had great scores of 3, 3, 5, 6, and 6. After the 2nd day of hard racing, we were proud to say that we qualified for the gold fleet by being top 10 of 19 teams. Our third day of the regatta had lots of inconsistent wind with huge shifts all day and lots of times where the wind would just shut off. But, we proudly ended our third and last day of racing with a 2nd place in a race and in 9th overall. Even though we didn't place in the top 3, we were awarded the sportsmanship trophy by our competitors and coaches. The biggest highlight of this regatta was getting to know so many teams from all over the nation including Texas, Hawaii, and San Francisco who we became really great friends with.
Thank you to the San Diego Yacht Club for all of the support. We are super appreciative of being able to represent SDYC in the 2023 Sears Cup and are hopeful to compete again next summer!