San Diego Yacht Club will host the Pacific Coast Interscholastic Sailing Association's (PCISA) Girls Invitational from October 21-22, 2017. This regatta is an all-girls event that draws high school teams from all across the country to participate. There will be 21 teams participating in the 2017 running of the event, with 15 of those teams traveling to San Diego from out of town.

The only one of its kind in the country, the Girls Invitational was first held in the spring of 2010. Race organizers held it again in October 2010, and it has been held in the fall every year since. This event was founded by SDYC member and former College All-American Sailor for the United States Naval Academy, Mary Brigden Snow.

For the past two weeks, we've been training at Oakcliff in Long Island, NY. During this focussed time in the 49er, we've had the chance to practice by ourselves, practice with other 49er Olympic hopefuls, and compete. We've sailed two regattas since being here and have performed well. You can find results here. 

Looking forward into the next few weeks, we'll be doing a bit of training in Southern California and Miami in October, followed by a month long training trip to Australia in November. We're really excited for the opportunity to travel to Australia, where we'll be spending time in Sydney and Melbourne training and competing. Keep reading to see how you can help support us in the coming weeks.

This August I sailed three regattas in a row in Kingston, Ontario. The three regattas being: Laser Canadian Championships, CORK Internationals, and CORK Olympic Classes Regatta. The Olympic Classes Regatta was the longest with 5 days of racing, but had the smallest radial fleet with only 6 boats. The second largest regatta was the Laser Canadian Championships with about 68 boats and 3 days of racing. Finally, the largest regatta was the CORK Internationals with a total of 135 boats. To get to the regatta we drove 40 hours across the United States, and when we got there we were greeted by an attractive city next to the water. The launch site was a beautiful place with Queen’s College right beside it.

The 2017 Zhik 29er World Championships were held very close to home this year in Long Beach.  Alamitos Bay Yacht Club hosted sailors from 16 countries and 130 boats gathered on the beach.  Close to the event, I was presented with an opportunity to sail with a girl from New Zealand named Greta Stewart.

After getting all of the last minute logistics organized in order to sail with Greta, the boat measured in and we were ready to go for the event. Greta arrived the night of the Opening Ceremony and just before the first day of racing. Greta and I had the chance to sail for for just a bit inside the harbor that evening.

On August 7th, Jack Plavan and I had the opportunity to travel to Toms River, New Jersey to compete in Bemis, the U.S Sailing Junior Doublehanded Championship. To get to this point, Jack and I had to get top two in the Area Qualifier, the Junior Olympics hosted by San Diego Yacht Club in July. We were able to place second after the three day event and we were excited to be on our way to New Jersey.

This was our first time going to this regatta and we were very excited for the unique aspects of this race. What makes this regatta unique is that everyone is provided a new C420 charter for the week, evening out the playing field. Also, since this was an event you have to qualify for, they limit the registration to only twenty teams. When we arrived, we quickly learned that we were the SoCal kids that the East coast kids had not seen before, but they knew that we came from a great program and had great sailors compete in this event from our yacht club before. Although seeing other sailors in their “Opti National Team” jackets was intimidating, we were confident in the training we had done at home.

The 2017 C420 National Championship was hosted by Wianno YC all the way out in Cape Cod. For the first time in a while, this event was to be the last event in the Triple Crown and the last regatta of the summer. Knowing that all of the top people could be tired after two weeks of nonstop sailing helped our mindset before the event.

On August 8th, my mom and I flew out of San Diego to Boston Logan and met up with my crew Tanner. We then drove 1 hour and a half to a little town on the Cape called Barnstable. I have previously been to this part of the Cape to visit my brother who has taught sailing there for the past two years. We got to our hotel late into the night and were able to fall asleep peacefully. The next day we drove twenty minutes to Wianno YC and set up our charter boat as well as a small practice built in.

A few weeks ago, we competed in the 29er World Championships at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach. The conditions were all over the place. We got everything from 20+ knots and large chop to days with only 3-5 knots and flat water.

During the Worlds, we had 3 days of qualifiers and 3 days of final races. In the qualifiers, we got one windy day where it got a little too much for us being the youngest and most likely the lightest team out there, so we had to head in early. The next two days, fortunately for us, were lighter with the wind not exceeding 10 knots. In those two days of lighter winds, we excelled and got a couple of top 20 finishes. With that we worked our way into the Silver fleet, which to us was a huge accomplishment.

I would like to thank the SDYC Competition Fund for allowing me to go to two of the best regattas. Although I didn't do as well as I had hoped, these regattas were focused around another theme this year. We focused on the sailing sisterhood. Part of the reason why I love going to Ida Lewis and Leiter is because it is a group of girls. These are not just any girls, they are friends. With light racing and hot temperatures it was certainly an experience.