by Walker Banks
The week of June 23-27, twenty five U.S. youth sailors completed an intensive five-day match race training camp run by three-time U.S. national champion and US Sailing Team Alphagraphics women’s match race coach Dave Perry. The camp was hosted by the U.S. Sailing Center of Sheboygan and the Sheboygan Yacht Club. With the Foundation’s help, four BYC Juniors attended the camp. Here is their account.
With unknown expectations, all of us sailing together for the first time, and a lot of excitement, we boarded our plane. We flew into Denver then on to Milwaukee. We landed rather late and found our ride and some familiar faces—the teams from Long Beach Yacht Club and King Harbor Yacht Club were both on the same van with us. We got to our host’s house, said goodnight to our friends from the north and went to bed.
The first three days of the event consisted of an advanced match race clinic with Dave Perry as the head coach. Day one was interesting as we learned how to rig the boats we were going to be sailing for the rest of the week, which were Sonars. Megan Kenney was the only one of our BYC team that had sailed a Sonar before—at the Prince of Wales – U.S. Match Race Championships. Having Megan with us was a big advantage. We were one of two teams with four people with Ryan Davidson at the helm, me as middle and calling tactics, Megan in the pit, and Brandon Wood on the bow. The other five teams had three people.
After the rigging session, we went out to practice our boat handling in about ten to twelve knots. After a long debrief, we went back home for the night. Our host, Karla Zhan, was very generous and welcoming. Ryan, Brandon and I had our own basement with shower, television and couch-beds. Megan stayed in her own room upstairs.
Day two began with a long chalk talk about pre-starts and upwind tactics. We went sailing the entire afternoon and practiced match racing drills in around eighteen knots of breeze. We ended the day with another long debrief and met some well known umpires from around the U.S. including the head judge from the last America’s Cup.
Day three was all downwind and more pre-start tactics. Again, we had a long chalk talk in the morning and a debrief in the late afternoon. We sailed in about twelve knots.
Day four was our first race day. We had our skipper’s meeting early in the morning and then went out for a full day of racing. We ended our day winning four races and losing one. Our loss was to Newport Harbor Yacht Club with skipper Andrew Mason and crew. There was a lot of very close match racing and the competition was good. Our race with NHYC was interesting. We entered on starboard and immediately took control of the start. We drew a penalty but lead back to line. We were over early about half of a boat length, but since NHYC also had a penalty the race was still very close. There was a lot of changing of positions and NHYC ended up ahead by a mere half of a boat length at the finish.
Day five was light in the morning so we only got off one race. Then the wind shut off, the rain started to pour, and the lightning started to strike. The race committee sent us into shore. We were in for all of five minutes and then we went back out. The wind was back and the sky was clear. However, as soon as we got back out, the wind shut off again. We spent about an hour and a half waiting for breeze then we went back in to figure our standings. There was a three-way tie for first—BYC, NHYC and Lake Beulah Yacht Club. Our last race was against King Harbor Yacht Club and after a very close race we finished just one and a half boat lengths behind them, putting us in third place overall with Will Haeger (Lake Beulah YC) in first and Andrew Mason (NHYC) in second. After a long trip, we said our goodbyes and got on our fifteen-minute flight from Milwaukee to Chicago.
The team sincerely appreciates all the support we received from the members of Balboa Yacht Club and the BYC Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation.
See the team’s thank you note to the Foundation here.