Thank you so much for the opportunity to be able to race in the club 420 North Americans. I was so excited to sail this regatta because I remember sailing in it 2 years earlier with my best friend. This regatta was very long, but luckily my skipper and I were well prepared to sail long days in various conditions.
I flew out July 10th and was able to have one free day before practice started on the 12th. We had two days of practice before the four day regatta. The launching was difficult as only two boats could launch at once with a fleet of 90. During the first practice day, the conditions were really light and we did not spend a lot of time on the water. The second and final practice day was too light to sail and we couldn’t practice until late in the afternoon and had to come in because of afternoon thunder storms.
On the first day of the regatta, the wind was still light, but fortunately we were able to sail 4 races. That day felt extremely long but we pushed on as this regatta was like a marathon. Starting was challenging due to the competitive fleet, but the line was relatively long which gave us more opportunity for front row starts. Unfortunately, one of the starts we were over and got black flagged. Due to this setback, we had to work even harder for top finishes. Luckily, Zoey and I practiced our reach sets before this regatta which allowed us to pass boats on the reach legs in addition to the other parts of the race.
The second day of the regatta was lighter, and due to this we only completed three races. The lack of wind and shifty conditions made it even harder to do well as we were sailing with some of the best in the nation. Since there wasn’t much wind, we couldn’t sail in the middle of the course; we had to sail on the edges. This made the shifty conditions even harder. We had better communication in the boat and grew from the previous day.
The third day of the championship was stressful and more challenging than the previous days as we grew more tired from long days. Due to the launching situation, being in the gold fleet was even harder because we were the first to start so we had to move our boat to the front of the line in the early morning, meaning we were spending even more time at the yacht club. Our coaches had long meetings which drained us even more meaning we were always the first people to arrive and the last to leave.
The last day we finally saw a steady breeze building from twelve knots. In addition to this wind, it was raining the entire day, including when we were packing up the boats. The race committee wanted to push for 5 races that day to reach their goal of 16 races, but was unable and could only do 4. By the last race, it was full breeze on which was unlike the other days.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to sail the 2021 Club 420 North American Championship.