The last regatta of a very busy summer, US Sailing’s Youth Sailing Championship, was hosted by Cabrillo Yacht Club in San Pedro, CA on August 1-4. Invitation to this regatta was by application only. Youths from all over the country applied to the regatta. Only 27 C420’s out of the 45 that applied got accepted, along with 27 Laser Radials, 14 Laser full rigs, and 13 29ers. The regatta was sailed on two race courses. The 29ers sailed on the course inside the break wall at Hurricane Gulch. The full rigs, Radials, and 420’s sailed on the outside course in the ocean off San Pedro. Both courses the first two days had a consistent 15 knots. The third day however was the lightest day of the regatta with about 8 knots.
Before this event my skipper, Kieran Chung, and I had decided this would be our most difficult regatta of the summer. This showed within just the first day. The competition was top notch. In our first race we had a 13th. We talked to our coach and changed our game plan. Struggling to find the superior boat speed we’d had all year, we changed our tuning and sailed our next race. We found that our speed was a little better but still not up to par. We ended our next two races both in 9th. After our third race we adjusted our tuning a little more and started the 4th and final race of the day. Finally, we had found our boat speed and ended the race in 5th. Unfortunately when we approached our coach after the race, he had informed us that we were over at the start. We ended the first dayday with a 13, 9, 9, OCS. Not our best day.
The second day the forecast was for the same wind as the day before. So we started with out settings that we had found our boat speed in the day before. As we reached the race course the wind was not as strong as we had anticipated. We had to change our settings forcing us to find our speed yet again. Our first race of the day ended in an 8th. The next two races of the day the wind had picked back up to the forecasted 15 knots. We switched to our speed settings in hopes of finally cracking the top five in a race. Unfortunately these last two races only made it harder for us to break the top 10 overall. We ended the day disappointed with an 8, 14, 11. Once again, not our best day.
The third day started out with no wind. We were postponed on the water for an hour. This day was exactly like Newport breeze, so we figured it would finally be our day. Our first race we had a good start and ended up 5th in the race. Our best race so far. This lifted our spirits for the next race. We still had a small chance of cracking the top 5 overall. We were hoping for two more races to help us achieve our goal. As we approached the finish line of our last race, it was clear that they weren’t going to run another race. We ended the regatta in 7th. We’d hoped for a top 5 and came close to it, but the competition and conditions were tough to crack.
Kieran and I would like to thank the BYC members and the BYC Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation for their continued support of our sailing efforts. We had a very successful summer sailing everything from CFJ’s to Lasers to 420’s to Gov Cup 21’s, and we encourage all BYC Junior sailors to get out there and represent the Club in as many regattas as possible.
Regatta Web Site: http://championships.ussailing.org/Youth/US_Youth_Champs.htm
Sailgroove Coverage: http://www.sailgroove.org/coverage/237396-US-SAILINGs-Chubb-US-Junior-Championships