The highlight of my sailing this summer had to be competing in the C420 nationals off Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Those three days felt so long despite the fact that the conditions didn’t hold up for much racing on the last two days. Our best race would’ve been on the second day. We were fighting for a top 10 spot on the last downwind, and I looked behind us to check if our breeze was clear. Just at that moment, I saw one of the first (of many) lightning strikes of the day. There was a mad dash to get back to shore, as this massive thunderstorm started to quickly take over the race course. many boats flipped in the sudden heavy winds. Luckily it was very shallow and they were plenty of people running into the water to assist in promptly getting onto land. It was truly a team effort and luckily the only damage was a bent mast. I wish we would have had a little bit of that wind leak into the next day, which was completely dead. But, I am glad the rain subsided and all of the flooded streets had time to, mostly, dry up. (And when I say flooded, I mean FLOODED. We could have kayaked back to the place where we had been staying!) Luckily, we had been fast on the first day and make good tactical decisions. Had we split into gold and silver devisions, my skipper and I, as well as Petey and Piper, would have made gold. Speaking of gold, Congrats to Piper Holthus and Sophia Pearce for taking the title of C420 National Champions, with a bullet in their last race!! There was incredibly high level competition at the event, and they really crushed it! Getting to go to this event was an incredible experience, and I am so glad that I got to be there. Thank you to the competition fund for making this possible!
Competing in the C420 New England championship was truly an experience. While the wind may not have been what we were hoping for, we still were able to enjoy our days on the water. The venue was a quite a pretty place. You could see the Stonington lighthouse from the course, and the water was relatively flat, extremely clear, and surprisingly, not cold! We ended up having to race on some shorter courses than we were used to, but the race committee made sure that we wouldn’t end up just bobbing around when the wind died in the afternoons. It was interesting starting with a midline boat, something I had not done before! It was a learning experience, but we were able to figure out where a good place to set up would be, and how we could use the current to our advantage. It was challenging to start with all the talented sailors, and also those few ‘random reachers’ that would make you do some quick maneuvers, Sometimes within 10 seconds to the start!
Connecticut was such a cool place to visit, and luckily just a few minutes away from the venue, the small town, Mystic, had a ton of classic sailboats that we got to look at in our spare time. Mystic and Stonington were such interesting little towns, with big wetlands and tons of plants. We even saw fireflies at night! We stayed in this quaint little cabin that my dad ffectionately nicknamed “The Swamp Shack”. I made so many memories on this trip, and learned a whole bunch about traveling with sails, chartering boats, and figuring out a new venue in a short amount to time.
Coming soon