Laser Midwinters West

Last weekend I went down to Richmond Yacht Club to sail on the San Francisco bay in the Laser Midwinters west. It was a tough regatta for me because it was really windy, the sailors were amazing, and I capsized every day. By the end of the 3 day regatta I was so sore. Every day we had a postponement waiting for the wind, but when the wind came, it was super strong. The swells were huge because the bay is so shallow. The first day I battled the up-winds and needed a looser rig going downwind. My starts were also not very good. In the second race, I capsized downwind and my centerboard had problems staying in so that I could swim around and right the boat. I eventually righted the boat and finished the race, but got passed by all the other boats after my capsize. The second day, I finished in 44th in the first race by hiking hard and having good reaches, but not a very good start. I finished 47th in the second race of the second day. In the 3rd race I was doing pretty well until i flipped downwind and ended up in 43rd. The last day we waited for wind and it came in really strong in the middle of the 1st race that day. I was doing well probably in the 30's when the wind stormed in and when I hit the downwind leg my sheet slipped out of my hand. I capsized after hitting a 4-5 ft. swell. Ben (my coach) came over to see if I wanted help, but I wanted to keep racing so I grabbed my rudder which fell out because of a broken pintle. I also shoved my centerboard into the trunk and did everything I could so that it would stay out even a little bit to pull it out and right it since the centerboard kept falling out. I finally righted the boat and realized the rudder was not in right so i had almost fixed it when I flipped again. At that point, I had no energy left and realized i wouldn't be able to finish the race within the time limit. Therefore, my coach assisted me in getting my boat back upright and we took the rig down. Then I couldn't sail the last race either. Overall, I was proud of my sailing and knew that I tried my absolute hardest.

Interlake High School places 4th in state!

Last weekend Mark Feeney (senior), Adam Schnitzer (junior) , and I (sophomore) sailed at Sail Sand Point against 150 other students. We placed 4th of high schools in the state behind Bainbridge Island, North Kitsap, and Orcas Island. We beat 10 high school teams and 1 college team. Only high schools located on an island or peninsula beat us. I will be sailing this weekend near Western Washington University, then will be going to San Francisco to sail in the Laser Midwinters West Championships, but after that we will be back together for another regatta.

Also, sorry to not have updated my blog in such a long time.

Recently, I have sailed in the High School Kick-off regatta at SYC. There were 25 boats and 130 sailors. It was our first team Interlake regatta and we got 17th.

I sailed in the frigid digit as well where there were 3 radials and I placed 2nd, losing first by getting 2nd in the last race to Alexis Aird.