By Sammie Gardner and Alice Schmid; Anton Schmid and Peter Joslin
On the last day of the 2021 school year four teams from SDYC took off from San Diego to participate in the 29er Nationals in Bristol, Rhode Island. Some of stayed at the Roger Willams University dorms that were just down the street from where we were sailing out of.
After one day of practice in Bristol we sailed in the Skiff fest regatta. Team SDYC did well with Ian and Noah Nienhyse winning, Anton Schmid and Peter Joslin in second, and Alice Schmid and Sammie Gardner taking 5th. After that three-day event, the team took Monday off to visit Newport and do some sight seeing.
The following week we continued to practice and train with some of the other 23 teams who were in town for the Nationals.
The regatta mostly took place around Hog Island, with three days of racing. Around Hog Island there was a lot of chop with the sea breeze filling in everyday to end up with pristine conditions. With the current going out and fighting against the 12-14 knots of breeze it caused massive chop and waves on the left side of the course, which resulted in some flipping and pitch poling.
The last day of racing was held inside Mount Hope bay. We only raced two races because it was scheduled to be windy, around 18-26 knots. The race committee expected the chop outside to be too big to race in and decided to race inside where the water was much flatter. While we were racing, the wind stayed down to around ten knots. The 49ers kept racing after we came in and the wind picked up a lot later in the day.
SDYC did very well in the Nationals. Ian and Noah won overall. Peter and Anton got 4th. Alice and Sammie got 10th. And Kelly and Jon got 11th.
After the regatta, five East Coast teams loaded their boats, along with three of ours, onto the ten boat trailer to go back and keep the action going with racing on the West Coast.