Thank you so much for supporting me to compete in the ILCA Radial Youth World Championship in Circolo Vela Arco, Italy. It was an amazing experience. We raced for six days. There were 40 countries represented with 374 sailors. I was one of six girls from the USA.
In the last week of June, fellow SDYC member Jack Plavan, and MBYC members Diego Escobar and Marianna Shand, and I took a trip across the country to Rochester, New York, to compete for the U.S. Youth Match Racing Championship, known as the Rose Cup. None of us had ever been to Rochester and we were excited to compete in our first U.S. Sailing Championship since the pandemic.
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.
Congratulations to SDYC's Piper Holthus and BCYC Sophia Pearce, winners of the 2021 C420 National Championship sailed in Brant Beach, NJ. The championship sailed with 132 teams came down to the last race, which Holthus and Pearce came in first.
At the beginning of this summer, we flew out to Bristol, Rhode Island for just under two weeks to compete in the 29er US Nationals. We flew out a week before the event to take part in the kiff
Generation Regatta held by the 2niner squad out of Roger Williams University. RWU is a great venue where we rigged in a forest and raced just off the beach.
Ian and Noah Nyenhuis (29er class) are the first SDYC juniors to qualify for the US Youth Worlds team since Judge Ryan qualified back in 2008. The 2021 Youth Worlds will be in Oman in December.
This past weekend, six 29ers took to the waters to compete in the San Diego Olympic Classes Regatta. The first day saw light winds from 4-8 knots from the west, that were accompanied by large swells and chop. The second day was windier, with the breeze from the north west direction at 8-10 knots with large swells and chop. The racing was close at the top of the fleet, with teams Sammie Gardner and Alice Schmid and Anton Schmid and Peter Joslin battled it out for the regatta win until the last race of the event, where Sammie and Alice eventually pulled ahead to win.
Register now for the July 23rd Dutch Shoe Marathon, the sabot race for Juniors and Seniors racing from La Playa, through San Diego Bay to Coronado. The annual summer tradition was canceled in 2020, so don't miss its 2021 return.
I am so grateful for the SDYC Competition Fund. For the past three months or so, I lived in Fort Lauderdale, FL, practicing with the Laser 4.7 team at the Lauderdale Yacht Club. Recently, I wnet to the Midwinters East regatta in Miami, FL, to represent SDYC there. I had a great experience. The conditions were rough, from waiting all day to get almost zero knots of wind to the next day, when we had fifteen knots of wind with chop. The whole SDYC team performed amazingly. This was a great step forward for the SDYC Laser team, and hopefully we will be able to go next year with twice as many people. I was so glad to be there with my sailing friends and family because of the competition fund. Thank you SDYC for supporting my adventure at the Midwinters East.
Recently, I was lucky enough to compete in the Clearwater Olympic Classes Regatta (OCR) from February 4 - 7, 2021. I have been in Florida since mid-December, first training with Key Biscayne Yacht Club (KBYC), and now with Lauderdale Yacht Club (LYC) team, beginning in early January. Clearwater OCR was the third of four regattas I am competing in, after Orange Bowl and Lauderdale OCR, with Mid-Winters East coming up soon in late February.
I am so thankful for the competition fund for making it possible for me to participate in the LOCR! Lauderdale Yacht Club was very accommodating, and put on a great event. This was my first away regatta where I was on my own without my parents, and I learned so much about the nuances of traveling. I trained with the Lauderdale team for a few weeks before the event, and the venue was very different from back home. It took a whole different skill set to sail through large waves and variable, puffy/shifty wind. I met so many people and made a lot of new friends, and it was also cool to spend time with my teammates, Oscar Parzen and Devin Owen.
Last December we attended the 2020 Orange Bowl and Open Orange Bowl regattas in Miami, Florida. Our family drove across the country towing a 29er and two lasers. The drive east was pretty uneventful, but we would get our share of excitement on the way back to San Diego! We arrived in Key Biscayne Thursday afternoon and unloaded our boats. The next day was spent at our hotel doing online school, our last day of school before winter break.
For the regatta, Calvin raced his laser, Alice and Sammie Gardner sailed a 29er, and Anton raced in an Opti.
US Sailing and host yacht clubs at spectacular sailing venues in Florida and California are thrilled to launch a new domestic racing and training series of Olympic-class regattas in 2021.
Your local Junior Directors are eager to get everyone safely racing as soon as possible, so we've created the 2021 SDAYC Winter Circuit to offer the most reliable local racing schedule possible for Sabots, Open Skiffs, Lasers, and C420s. Better yet, this enabled us to tune Team SDYC's Early Winter/Afterschool training opportunities to complement this regatta schedule, for minimum hassles and maximum sailing and progress! With events like the 2021 Junior Sabot Nationals and othe summer championships on deck, let's get busy on the water! Current SDAYC Jr Winter Circuit Results
Hello Sailors, Parents, and Coaches,
On behalf of our Junior Board of Directors, I’d like to thank each of you for participating in the 2020 Junior Invitational Regatta; and congratulate all of Team SDYC on executing and performing very well at what was certainly a challenging event on the water!
Over 80 single-handed boats sailed in the San Diego Olympic Classes Regatta (SDOCR) this weekend at the San Diego Yacht Club, a regatta that for most was the first opportunity to compete in months. Lasers, Laser Radials, and Finns made way to two separate ocean courses where they “socially distance” sailed in boat lengths for seven races. In an effort to provide sailors with a venue for them to compete in international, high-level classes, the SDOCR was home for sailors of all ages and experience levels.
In the Laser fleet, Ford McCann took first with 7 points, Marshall McCann took second with 10 points, and Paul Didham took third with 19 points.
In the Finn fleet, legend Finn-sailor Henry Sprague took first with 7 points, Michael Dorgan finished second with 11 points, and Scott Griffiths followed in third with 22 points.
In the Laser Radial fleet, Nathan Sih won first with 10 points, followed by Morgan Pinckney in second with 14 points and Santiago Quiroga in third with 22 points.
2019’s Christmas Orange Bowl Youth Regatta, at the Coral Reef Yacht Club in Florida, was a 3-and-a-half-day event. We both competed in Blue Fleet, after two days of practicing with the local clinic. It was a different experience than what we are generally used to in sailing sabots, yet the water was certainly much warmer! One day at the clinic, under the guise of our wonderful instructor Spencer was a sight to see. A flash flood had hit, and the entire Yacht Club was flooded in a foot of water--up to the bottom of the car doors, but in typical Florida fashion the CRYC had dried everything out by the afternoon. During the regatta, we had a very rough time due to the larger waves and stronger wind you don’t usually encounter as much in sabots in California. The wind would also shift regularly on the course - adding to our troubles. The course was a mile or more offshore, which we were not expecting. Overall, however, we both progressed as time moved on. We were a bit disappointed that we missed a couple of races - we were challenged by different racing conditions - but we did not let that ruin our regatta. It was both of our first times racing optimists - while we didn’t perform to our expectations in the event, we feel it was an incredible experience that completely transformed our view on sailing as a sport and also on competitive racing.
The 2019 Orange Bowl Regatta hosted by Coral Reef Yacht Club was a great event and a fun learning experience. I competed in this event with my crew and fellow SDYC junior sailor, Sara Parker. We flew out to this event on Christmas day connecting through Dallas on our way to Miami, Florida. We got to the event and met up with our coach and worked on our charter boat and got to sorting out our settings. We headed out to practice and were greeted by 12-15 Kts of breeze. This was my first time sailing on Biscayne Bay and it is very different to sailing in Southern California, it is a very open venue with Key Biscayne on the top edge of the course and is windier than here. We sailed in a typical easterly breeze the whole event.
Without a long wind delay this morning, all three classes were able to get some racing in 9 knots that built to about 15-16 knots by mid-afternoon. After four races in the 49erFX and Nacra classes, Paris Henken (Coronado, Calif.) and Anna Tobias are leading the 49erFX fleet, and Riley Gibbs (Long Beach, Calif.) and Anna Weis (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) are in third in the Nacra 17 fleet.
Leandro Spina, US Sailing’s Olympic Development Director, who last year was awarded "Developmental Coach of the Year” by the US Olympic Committee, traveled to SDYC last weekend to coach the latest high-performance youth sailing clinic organized by JJ Fetter. 45 youth sailors attended the weekend clinic. Two laser sailors came down from San Francisco. Top 29er and Laser sailors traveled from Santa Barbara, LA and Long Beach plus youth sailors attended from every SD-area club. Seventeen SDYC juniors participated.
Finn Olympic medalist Caleb Paine and former Youth World Champion Giselle Nyenhuis coached the sixteen Laser Radial sailors. The 29ers were coached by former Youth World skipper Neil Marcellini and Olympic skiff coach Willie Mcbride (who left the day after the clinic for New Zealand to coach Olympians Paris Henken and Anna Tunnicliffe at their upcoming World Championships). And the C420s were coached by multiple World Champion and PLHS Head coach Steve Hunt with former C420 National Champion Chuck Eaton. The next high-performance youth clinic at SDYC will be February 1st - 2nd for i420s, 29ers and Laser Radials.