Thursday, February 16th, my crew Tanner Chapko and I boarded our red eye flight to Miami for the annual Club 420 Midwinters. This is one of the major events of the year that houses a ton of competitive teams. This year we both had goals of top five in the 107 boat fleet and staying positive through the three days of intense racing we had ahead of us. With this in mind, we spent the flight thinking of ways we could achieve that goal.
Friday morning until lunchtime, we were catching up on the sleep we missed. After our recovery, we headed to the United State Sailing Center, Marin County. We checked in with our charter and headed out for a quick two hour practice. The conditions all weekend were supposed to be a max of 20 and a low of 8. Thanks to our experience in many ranges of wind, we went into the weekend ready to face any condition the Indian River gave us.
Day 1 and Day 2 were both similar conditions. 14-18 with puffs of twenty throughout the entire day. Day 1 we sailed three races and Day 2 we sailed 4. The breeze allowed for some intense races, including a couple of awesome reaches that we easily dominated the fleet in. Throughout the breeze, we were definitely one of the fastest boats on the course as we headed into the final day in 8th place.
Day 3 was the lightest day of all maxing out at 12. While other boats were having trouble switching into the lighter air conditions, we had previous knowledge of what works well in these conditions. Our boat was set up perfectly and we were dialed in to the course. We both were communicating pressure changes and shifts more than other boats as we were consistent with some top tens. Those top tens were enough to put us up into 4th place overall.
Coming in off the water and finding out we were in 4th was an accomplishment for both of us. Even though we made some mistakes throughout the weekend, we still had achieved our overall goal. The highlight of the entire weekend was being able to represent The San Diego Yacht Club at one of the biggest events in the C420 class. Thank you very much to the SDYC Comp Fund for providing us the ability to show off the Yacht club to other juniors in the nation.