By Andy Reiter
The US Youth Championship regatta is hosted every year in August. To be able to compete in this event you must fill out an application with all of your top results. My crew, Charlie Miller, and I were lucky enough to be accepted into the US Youth Championships in the Club 420 class. This event is the pinnacle of youth sailing in the United States, all of the best sailors in the country travel to sail in this single championship. One of the coolest parts of this event is that all of the competitors are the same age as each other. My crew and I were blessed with a great host family who was so supportive of our needs and extremely kind to put up with all of our stinky sailing gear.
Charlie Miller and I flew out of San Diego friday night on a red-eye to Detroit Michigan. We landed in Detroit at 5:00 in the morning and were not being picked up from the airport until 12:00 p.m. Being so exhausted, we slept on the floor in the airport for a couple of hours. Once it reached noon we were picked up in a school bus full of competitors and were driven to the venue. When we arrived at Grosse Pointe Yacht Club Charlie and I went straight to receive our charter boat and check in for the event. After doing so we rigged up and went out for a quick practice to get a feel for the shifty lake sailing we were about to race in.
Day 1 of the event was postponed due to massive thunderstorms. All of the competitors were sheltered and kept warm inside the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club. It was painful to look out the windows of the yacht club and see 15-20 knots of breeze that we couldn’t sail in. Racing was called off after 3:00 pm Charlie and I went back to our host families house with the mindset of kicking butt the next day.
Day 2 of the US Youth Champs was exactly like the first day, but the thunderstorm was a lot more patchy and we were actually lucky enough to have a big enough gap to start a race. When the race committee said it was time to go racing, Charlie and I knew this was our time to go out and sail our best. The conditions were very light breeze with a foot of chop. These weren’t our ideal conditions, but we made do with them. Our only race of the day we placed 5th, which put us in 5th overall after the 2nd day of racing.
Day 3 was game on, the thunderstorms cleared and it was a perfect 18-20 knots. These were the conditions that my crew and I were waiting for. We perform best in the heavy breeze due to our weight and knowledge of how to sail the boat fast. The first race of the day we placed 3rd, and we were absolutely thrilled with it. We went into the next race knowing that we had to keep it consistent. The second race of the day we one by a whole leg! It was a combination of getting lucky and being very fast. This gave Charlie and I a huge confidence boost. The third race of the day we just sailed as best as we could and placed 5th, now this is the consistency we were looking for! Going into the last race of the day we had our heads up high and were extremely happy with the day so far. The last race we had some trouble finding a clear breeze and the favored side of the course, but we still placed 19th. At the end of the day we knew that we had one throw out, so we knew that this would put us up in the top of the fleet. When we got into the dock and looked at results we were in 1st with a lead of 12 points! Charlie and I went straight back to our host families house and went straight to bed because we knew that the next day would be a big one.
Day 4: Going into the last day of the event winning with a 12 point lead is one of the most stressful situations I have ever been in. The night before I didn’t sleep too well, so in the morning I was exhausted and didn’t have my mind in the right place. But I tried to fight through it and sail the best and most consistent day I could. The breeze was around 10-15 knots and extremely puffy. At one point in the first race the wind had gone from 14 knots to 5 knots. After floating upwind for half a leg, in came a huge puff out of the far right. It was devastating to see the boats that were over there going 3x our speed and passing us. We placed 24th in that race. Charlie and I just tried to stay confident and keep our sanity. The next race was awesome, we did everything right and finished 9th. We were thrilled to have come back like that due to our last race. The next race was exactly like the first one of day 3, extremely puffy and shifty. We struggled very badly and we started to become very stressed out because we placed 28th in that race. Going into the last race we knew that the hope for winning was long gone so we just went out there and sailed as best as we could to represent SDYC, and so we did, placing 5th in the last race of the event. This put us in 6th place overall at the US Youth Championships.
The US Youth Champs was my favorite regatta by far because it was only kids our age and they were all the best of the best. We are so happy our long time teammates Scott Sinks and Rebecca McElvain won the regatta! We couldn’t have had this amazing of an experience without the generous support of the SDYC Competition Fund. We would like to thank the SDYC Competition Fund making it possible for my crew and I to compete in this event.