Dear BYC MSSF,

After such a great clinic as CISA 2013, I cannot express enough thanks for all the support that this foundation provides to help support me continue in my training and follow my path in the sport of sailing. Thank you.

The clinic this year was unique for me in that this was my sister Grace’s first experience with high level sailing giving me the opportunity to do coaching for my sibling as well as really focus in on the finer points of sailing in the ocean. My goals included steering through chop and swell with precision to get the most speed out of the wave and specific spinnaker work. To accomplish this, I really pushed my sister to develop skills and sail at a really high level she’d never sailed at before. She impressed me immensely with her drive to be better and her steep learning curve picking up advanced concepts and muscle memory extremely quickly.

After three days of light to medium wind in mid level swell and chop with Olympic sailors as coaches, the fourth and final race day came out strong building from 15kts. to 30kts. by the end of the day. We finished 2nd with a frustrating spinnaker problem on the first race moving us from a strong first place position to 5th yet struck back in the next two with a 2nd and 3rd. At the end of the day we were both proud of our consistent strong sailing, and I was even more thankful for the chance to push myself and give my sister the opportunity to go from sailing a CFJ only a couple times in light air to comfortably setting a kite in 20 kts.

Once again thank you to BYC MSSF for this amazing support and opportunity to sail in the CISA clinic.

Thank you,
Harrison Vandervort