After a great Father’s Day working mark-set for the Rose Cup and watching BYC members Christophe Killian, Harrison Vandervort and Jack Martin dominate on the water, we welcomed three Optimist sailors from Riverside Yacht Club to our home. Ben Schinto, Angus Manion and Jaden Nygard arrived just in time to meet their club’s Rose Cup team from RYC before they left for home. We toured the club, saw the brand new sabots that had been loaned for the week and all piled into a huge car to make our way home. When we arrived at the house, we started up a game of pool. After pool, came time to play Xbox, have dinner then we crashed early.
The next morning we all were very tired, especially the RYC kids. After breakfast, we piled back into the car for the 30 min. drive down to BYC. When we arrived, the BYC kids who went to Connecticut last year (Pearce Mendoza, Gray Hemans, and I showed the RYC sailors how to rig the sabots and launch them. Once their boats were in the water, they met their coach and started practicing right away. One the water all day, then de-rig and put their boats up on the rack. After sailing, the kids got to say hello to Isabelle Meegan, who had gone to RYC last summer, but is no longer sailing sabots. Then into the car for the drive home, and back to games of pool, Xbox, dinner, then bed at 9:30. Tuesday, we woke up especially early to a good face licking from our dog Zia who loved having so many boys in the house. The week provided good practice and each of the RYC sailors learned helpful tips to make the boats go faster. After practice on Wednesday, we went out for a sail on Varuna, which is owned by Mr and Mrs. Hemans. Varuna is an awesome Rogers 46′ carbon fiber racing machine! We took turns driving and trimming the sails, all the while relaxing and sharing stories. That evening, after the cruise we were informed by the International Naples Sabot Association that the boats were not built in conformance with class rules and that they were deemed illegal by the chief measurer because of materials used in the hull construction. That meant that the new boats we not class certified and could NOT be sailed in the upcoming regatta. So, Thursday morning, we scrambled to pull together other BYC sailors’ Sabots, including mine, Pearce Mendoza‘s back up boat and Isabelle Meegan‘s. I was lucky enough to borrow Chris Killian‘s beautiful hand crafted wooden Sabot RUPERT, which was featured at the last BYC Wooden Boat Festival. Thursday evening the Meegan family hosted a pool party at their house which was super fun. Friday was an awesome day. We all went to the INSA measurement day to get our boats measured for the upcoming Jr. Sabot Nationals Regatta in August. The RYC sailors saw how our boats are measured and why it is important that all the boats be checked and certified. They were not used to a class of boats having so many equipment and rigging variations. There are fewer Optimist manufacturers with very strict build standards. There are many different Sabot manufacturers with lots of variations in the design. In the afternoon, we took a break from sailing and headed out to visit the world famous Wedge and the Balboa Fun Zone, to have some fun.. There we no big waves at the Wedge, so we went on some rides at the Fun Zone. The first ride we went on was the Fish Pipe which was a large hamster ball that was mounted on a motor which spun it. Inside there was water and the spinning ball made an infinity slide. We also went on the Bull Shark ride and the Bungie trampoline where we did flips and high jumps. We blew all of our spending money on cheap sunglasses and candy at Balboa Candy before we headed home to rest up for the regatta. Saturday was race day at Newport Harbor Yacht Club’s Summer Gold Cup. We rigged our boats and ate a traditional BYC regatta breakfast of Breakfast Burritos which is pretty much Heaven in a tortilla.
We decided it would be fun to sail up to the race venue, so we started out. Once we left the dock the wind picked up and everything got a little more intense. Some sailors decided to get towed up to NHYC. On the tow, Angus Manion was on the low side of his boat and when his sail filled, the boat capsized. While he was trying to right his boat, it started to rain. I sailed side by side with Ben and Jaden up to NHYC. Once we arrived, I told the RYC sailors how unusual it is for us to get this much wind in Newport Beach. We got Angus some dry clothes and waited for our skipper’s meeting. Once the meeting was over we headed out to the race course to start racing. It was starting to get pretty windy and around midday during Race 2 and 3, Ben flipped. On Day 2 during Race 1, Jaden swamped his boat and broke his tiller/rudder. Luckily, Sammy Hemans had finished racing in the C2 fleet and loaned her boat to Jaden so that he could finish the regatta. Everybody put up top 10 finishes, some even in the top 5. We all ended up around mid fleet. We each sailed a bit better than the previous day and we ended the regatta happy and relaxed, in spite of the chaos the crazy weather brought.
I would like to thank each of the families who participated in this cross training adventure including Junior Activities’ Chairmen, Mr. and Mrs. Meegan, Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza, Mr. and Mrs. Hemans and my parents Forrest and Denise Petersen. My mom’s washing machine is still trying to catch up from a great, fun filled week of sailing with our Connecticut friends. These three BYC families housed, fed, transported, entertained and supplied boats for our Riverside guests for the entire week. That is no easy task. I also would like to thank Mrs. Manion, who is the Volunteer Junior Activities Chairman for Riverside Yacht Club and Angus’ mom, who traveled with the kids from Connecticut and took care of a lot of the travel arrangements and details. A BIG thank you to BYC and RYC for hosting such a fun event. I got to go to Connecticut in the summer of 2012 to race Optis. I stayed with the Schinto Family and I had a great time. I hope I get to go again someday. Thank you to the BYC Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation for your support in funding some of the travel expenses for this trip. We will remember it forever as our first Big Time travel regatta experience. Hopefully there will be many more to come in our futures.
Sincerely
Jeffrey Petersen