Dear BYC Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation,

Thank you for your sincere support of my partner, Porter Killian and me in the 2012 Junior Olympic Festival Regatta. We were so excited to be able to participate. This year’s Junior Olympic Festival, held at California Yacht Club, excited us in the sense that we would get to test our skills in a new environment and a major regatta.

The first day, Thursday, we arrived, unloaded boats, registered for the regatta, and then we rigged up and did some prep work. We then launched our boat, and sailed some practice races with Wyatt and Peyton Russell. The sail out of the harbor took a good hour with very light wind, but we did get in some practice roll-tacks along the way. When we reached the jetty, we realized that we only had about 45 minutes until the rest of the fleet would be returning by tow and de-rigging. With this realization we practiced for a while and then headed in ahead of the fleet.

The following day was officially the first day of the regatta, and the wind was unfortunately light. In fact, the wind was so light; the first start was postponed for about 2 aggravating hours. However the chop and wind picked up as the day went on. We did not do too well however due to our lack of experience in sailing with little wind in choppy conditions.

Saturday turned out to be slightly windier than Friday, minus the chop, at least in the morning. Despite there being a far steadier wind I think we were a little demoralized by the previous day. This combined with pure frustration did not help our results.

Sunday was the final day of a regatta.  We did not feel we were doing well at all. We decided to work out some kinks and try to learn everything we could for our next regatta. We finished in 22nd place but I think that both my crew and I made the best of the situation and learned a lot. Once again, my crew and I would like to pass on our sincerest thank you to MSSF for all of your support.

Sincerely,

Britton Hammock