Dear BYC Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation,
Thank you so much for your financial support, helping me to attend 2019 C420 heavy weather clinic held at St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. I attended along with my skipper, Sophia Devling. We learned so much and had so much fun. The coaches for the clinic were Sydney Bolger, Udi Gal and Helena Skutt.
We started with a morning briefing on the day’s focus. The focus for day one was boat handling. For day two the focus was boat speed, and on the final day, we put it together for a race day. In the morning we discussed the different aspects of each focus. Then on the water, we put these into practice. The coaches took tons of videos on the water. After sailing, we debriefed watching the videos. Through the video, we did not only learn from our own mistakes but also from the mistakes and success of our fellow sailors.
We were also treated to two other amazing opportunities, a tide talk by a tide expert and to sail on a MOD70, Power Play. On Saturday evening we had an hour long talk with a San Francisco local tide expert who using arial pictures and his experience to give us a much better and wider understanding of the tides of the bay. Then on Monday afternoon, in groups of 12 we all got to ride on Power Play a MOD70 foiling trimaran. We got to sail at 30 knots of boats in about 18 knots of breeze.
This clinic was very important this year for us as 2019 C420 North Americans would take place in July at St. Francis Yacht Club. This clinic gave us important experience and learning opportunities that would prepare us for North American’s later in the year. Thank you so much for your support!