American kiteboarders will have the opportunity to represent their country at the 2019 Pan American Games by winning the Kiteboard Pan American Trials in Formula Kites hosted by the San Diego Yacht Club on March 29-21, 2019. An expected 12-15 kiteboarders will compete in a series of races off beautiful Crown Cove on Silver Strand State Beach in Coronado, California.
The Crown Cove venue is ideal for kiteboarding, allowing the riders to launch right from the beach into the flat waters of South San Diego Bay. Last November, kiteboarders from all over the world came to compete at the same venue for the Kiteboarding North Americans where six riders, including Will Cyr of the USA, qualified their countries for the 2019 Pan American Games.
On February 9-10, SDYC hosted a 29er clinic led by Rio Olympics 49erFX coach, Willie McBride with additional high-level coaching from Sterling Henken, Giselle Nyenhuis, Dane Wilson and JJ Fetter. Teams traveled from San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Long Beach to train with our growing SDYC 29er fleet. The clinic included two days of high-intensity drills and post-sailing video debriefs. Next stop for several of the teams, including SDYC 29er sailors Ian and Noah Nyenhuis, will be competing in the first Youth World Qualifier (YWQ) in Miami on February 16-18. The second and final YWQ is the 29er MidWinters West at Coronado Yacht Club on March 22-24.
On December 26th, the day after Christmas, my sister and I got on a plane for Miami. We were going there for the Orange Bowl regatta. I crewed for Kelly Holthus on a 29er and Alice crewed for Piper Holthus on a C420. Kelly and I were not very experienced compared to the other people there since we have only been sailing since the end of August and we went into the regatta with the mindset to learn as much as possible. With the help of the amazing coaches there, I feel we achieved that. The 29ers, Optis, I420s, and Lasers sailed out of the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, which was a great facility and they did a good job as hosts.
SDYC was represented by skippers Andy Reiter, Will La Dow, and Scott Sinks, and crews Molly Pleskus, Carissa Crawford, and Rebecca McElvain respectively. We would like to start by saying thank you. Our privilege to represent SDYC at the 2018 US Team Racing Championship would not have been possible without the support of our amazing members, board of directors, and the Competition Fund. We would also like to thank our generous hosts, the Barker family who provided housing, transportation, food, and managed to run the regatta at the same time!
San Diego Yacht Club is pleased to host the PCISA/ISSA Girls National High School Invitational Regatta on October 20-21, 2018. Founded by SDYC's Mary Brigden-Snow, this is the largest National, High School Girls regatta today. The SDYC junior program is uniquely positioned to host events like this. Our outstanding junior facility, a fleet of 24 CFJ's, and an armada of coach boats, means teams from around the country can be hosted at SDYC.
Lumpy seas and a moderate Pacific Ocean swell this weekend didn’t dampen the spirit of the sailors from two days of intense sailing, hardy competition and for some, significant improvement. The inaugural San Diego Olympic Classes Regatta (SDOCR) was nothing short of a successful weekend. Over 80 boats in six fleets came out for the regatta and are already anticipating their return next year.
For this year’s Extreme Sailing Regatta, the “Chat with Champions” event will be held at 5:45PM on Friday, October 19th and is open to any junior sailor who would like to attend.
All the hard work from the JAC, membership and friends of the junior program working to maintain the excellence of our junior program finally culminated with the Sail 2018 Junior’s Nine-0 Luau last Friday. Tables where decorated with flowers in Tiki Cups, Hula Girls, cans of spam and pineapples capped off by tunes from Ke’Ahi on his ukulele. Great craft beer donated by our friends from Karl Strauss, accompanied roast pig, with all the Hawaiian trimmings.
At the first clinic, twenty junior sailors learned the ins and outs of the i420 covering topics such as mast bend, sail shape, proper trapeze technique as well as downwind spinnaker sailing. As a precursor to the second clinic, all sailors got a chance to rotate through two 29ers, where they had one-on-one time with a coach to get their first taste of skiff sailing.
The second clinic weekend saw a sold out crowd of twenty six sailors trying out the fast and often tipsy 29er. Incorporating the use of hands-on drills while on land helped these sailors learn the foot and hand work that was needed before they even hit the water. Chalk talks throughout the weekend included the intricacies of skiff sailing, the use of the asymmetrical spinnaker, as well as the importance of communication between the crew and skipper especially in fast paced boats like the 29er. Their skills were tested as the weekend progressed with near perfect conditions to rip around the bay and get a real sense for the excitement of the boat.
This summer I competed in the Chubb U.S. Junior Championships. It was held at North Cape Yacht Club in LaSalle, Michigan. This regatta was sailed on Lake Erie and was generally very light. The race was sort of a clinic and a regatta where we all had the same coaches and had big team meetings after everyday of sailing. It was warm in LaSalle but nothing compared to Texas or North Carolina, where I raced earlier in the summer. It was one of the funnest regattas that I have ever sailed with the combination of very competitive sailing and fun after sailing activities.
Over this past July I did a lot of traveling around the country to sail on each coast - Gorge Skiff Regatta at the Columbia River Gorge outside of Portland and Buzzard’s Bay in Massachusetts for the 29er National Championship.
My family began our road trip to the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon just after Fourth of July. When we arrived to the sailing venue I was overwhelmed by the immense beauty of the Gorge. We later enjoyed a wonderful practice day in 10-15 knots and familiarized ourselves with the venue.
This year, Brook Wood and I had the privilege of traveling to Mentor, Ohio for the 2018 US Sailing Junior Women’s Doublehanded Championship, otherwise known as Ida Lewis. This regatta is in memoriam of Thomas Clagett’s late wife, named after a women who had bravery like no other, Ida Lewis. She was known for saving the lives of many people who would pass by her father’s lighthouse in distress. The US Sailing Women's Doublehanded Championship featured 80 girls (40 teams) which was the highest participation number in years! There were teams from California, New York, New Jersey and Alabama, just to name a few. Getting to know the girls from across the country was one of Brook’s and my favorite parts!
To begin the month of August Jack Plavan and I (Jack Egan), boarded a JetBlue flight out to Boston, where we would then drive from to arrive at New Bedford, on the cape of Massachusetts where the C420 North American Championship would be held in the coming days. We were very excited to experience Buzzards Bay, which is notorious for its great wind. At the venue, we were greeted by an old military fort dating back to the Civil War, and a brand new Zim charter boat. The next four days had a range of conditions, with 20+ knots on the first day and then a little less wind each coming day getting to as low as 6 knots on the last day with a day of no racing in between for rain and wind. It was a new experience for Jack and I to sail in a 180 boat fleet with a middle start boat and to have that windy of conditions but still get 30°+ wind shifts and 10 knot wind differences on the course. By the end of our regatta, we found ourselves in sixth place. There was not much time to rest as we flew out the next morning to Detroit to head to the CHUBB Junior Championship (Bemis).
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 2018 Junior Sabot Nationals at Long Beach Yacht Club wrapped up a great season for SDYC. The week was very tricky with some extreme currents and fog during the start of the second and third days causing some crazy wind shifts. First, second, and fifth in gold fleet, Team SDYC put in a ton of effort this year leading up to the event. Practice every day during the summer and a clinic with other clubs from our area ensured we were prepared.
This year the Youth Champs Regatta was located in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. It was four days with many kinds of boats including the Laser Full Rig, Laser Radial, i420, 29ner, Nacra, and windsurfers. I was sailing Laser Radials, but it was great seeing friends from all of the other fleets as well as mine. It made it difficult though when we started because of how the Radials needed to wait for the i420s and the Full Rigs to start before us.
Last week (July 16 thru 21), my crew comprised of Johannes McElvain, Wade Waddell, and I traveled to Balboa Yacht Club to race in the 52nd Annual Governors Cup regatta. The regatta attracted twelve of the top youth match racers from around the world to compete for the prestigious Governor's Cup trophy. This year's event was heralded by many of the organizers as "the toughest" Governors Cup in history, as well as the top youth match race regatta in the world. The invitational regatta featured multiple top 50 ranked sailors, as well as the current #1 ranked match racer in the world. With such a competitive fleet, my team and I were excited to match up against the world’s best. The regatta was comprised of a practice day and opening ceremony followed by five long days of racing sailed off of the Newport pier. It was our teams first match race regatta sailed together, and my third Governors Cup as a competitor.
On Friday, July 20, over 150 sailors, both junior and senior, from several Southern California clubs celebrated the 46th annual Dutch Shoe Marathon with a long, fun race from San Diego Yacht Club to Coronado Yacht Club in sabots.
On June 22-24, 5-time U.S. Match Racing National Champion Dave Perry led an advanced S.O.D.A. youth match racing clinic, sponsored by North U, at the San Diego Yacht Club. Nine of the top teams in the U.S. trained hard for two and a half days in the Club’s J/22’s.
I recently travelled to Hong Kong for the 2018 29er World Championships. I had the privilege of being selected for the US Sailing Travel Team for the event. The regatta proved to be very action-packed at times and not so much at others. For the six day event, we had two days of racing when the Race Committee did not allow sailing due to too much breeze, with gusts into the forties as recorded by the race committee on those days. The other four days included one very light and three very windy days. Two of the very windy days were gusting into the thirties while the other only included only one race because it got so windy while we were out on the water that they had to send us in. The race committee recorded a gust of fifty knots on that day. It was complete carnage! I did not achieve the result I was hoping for at this event, however, the extreme conditions and world class competition allowed me to gain so much experience and knowledge. The experience of travelling to another country and competing against the world’s best was amazing and is something I will never forget. I’d like to thank the SDYC Competition Fund for the continued support in my quest for excellence.