Author Archives: sailstrong

USODA Team Trials Recap

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Congratulations to all 20 sailors for their performances at Team Trials. Like every regatta, some sailors met their expectations, some exceeded them, and some fell a little short, but every sailor had a bright spot during the event and showed that they are learning to be better sailors. Plenty of smiles and quality team bonding throughout the week as well. 

The results were solid with 4 sailors in the Top 50 led by JC Hermus in 7th, Jack Brown in  37th, Gray Benson in 42nd, and Gage Schoenherr in 45th. We had another 4 sailors make the top 100 and several more just outside. Big congrats to Luke Arnone, the White Fleet Champion for 2012 Trials!

With races run in everything from 5 knots to 25+, predictably oscillating shifts and hard to read persistent shifts,  this was a true test of having a range of sailing skills. For many of the sailors this was the longest event they had sailed, which put an emphasis on mental and physical stamina. Of the 20 sailors, only 3 had been to a Team Trials before, so this young group will come back to their next big event with much more experience and confidence. 

Thanks to all the parents for their support through this big event and to Will Brown and Leigh Kempton for helping out with the coaching.  Congrats again to everyone. It can be a grueling event and I was proud to see everyone still “sailing strong” at the end of the week. 

Pics from our sailors’ spring overseas adventures.

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Busy Month Ahead

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Between April 6th and 29th we will be on the water 19 days supporting close to 30 sailors. We will be in Brant Beach for most of the days but doing some mid-week training in Island Heights, NJ next week. 

Several of our sailors are still at international events this weekend so have a solid turnout of 12 sailors. Starting next weekend we will have two coaches for the 15 plus sailors every day through the end of Team Trials. We will have a great group of coaches working with the kids over those days, including Juan Carlos Romero, Leigh Kempton, Will Brown, and Clay Johnson.

We are very excited about our first USODA Team Trials as a team, especially since we are going to be helping 21 sailors get the most out of the event. 

We will be sailing in May as well so if you have not had your kid on the water yet this year or are looking for a jump on the summer sailing season, please get in touch and we will help get them going. Also check out the clinic page for our June and July clinic schedule. 

March Update

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Our first three weeks of spring sailing have been great practices with 10-12 kids on the water each day. All the sailors have been improving tremendously as we start winding down towards the US Team Trials at the end of April in New Jersey. 

Over the next couple weeks we have several sailors heading to spring international regattas with JC Hermus already in Argentina for the IODA South American Championship and Thomas Rice, Aaron Helmly, and Porter Kavle heading to Holland for the Magic Marine Easter Regatta. We are all very proud of the boys and wish them well. Sail fast, have fun. 

The team has been invited to the Volvo Sailing Academy Team Race in Miami in May. This is part of the Volvo ocean race and takes place in every stop over port of the race. JC, Thomas, Aaron, Gray Benson, and Stephanie Houck will represent the team in Miami and race against the other top Opti teams in the country. Should be a great experience. Check it out here.

Last but not least there is now a SailStrong Youtube channel. I will be posting videos from our practices and regattas. Good to help the kids have a look at their sailing from a different perspective. Here is the first video. 

Spring sailing starts this weekend

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We will be kicking off our spring practice schedule this weekend in Bellport, NY. We will practice there for two weekends, then head to Oyster Bay for a weekend, then on to New Jersey to Island Heights and Brant Beach. If you are interested in your kids getting on the water this spring please contact us. 

Valentine’s Day Regatta

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This years Valentine’s Dar Regatta at St. Petersburg Yacht Club only ended up with three races for the regatta but it was an excellent learning experience for the kids nonetheless and some of the sailors still came away with some good results, most notably Julia Leighton was second girl. The current hurt the team as a whole with some bad decisions about laylines on the upwind and rhum line on the downwind. Add the top wind speed of 7 knots to the mix and there was some definite frustration. The starting line experiences were valuable though and will help in any conditions. It was great to have 17 sailors for the event, all having a good time and seem to be progressing. Thanks to Leigh Kempton for coming down and being our second coach.

SailStrong’s Inaugural Orange Bowl

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We just finished up our first Orange Bowl as SailStrong Youth Racing. It was much warmer than last year but the wind did not cooperate for most of the regatta which led to some very tough sailing throughout the event. Day one had the most wind with 18 knots from the South and if you have sailed in Miami you know the chop can be tough when the wind blows straight up Biscayne Bay. The following three days were sailed in under 8 knots with no races on day 3 of the event.

Our top finishers were Joe LaForgia in 56 and Thomas Rice in 63rd (80 place improvement from last year). We also had top 10 races from Brendan Little and Nick Brady and top 15 races from Jack Brown and Michelle Lahrkamp. All the kids learned a ton and of course we will back for this circus again next year, hopefully with some more breeze but still warm. 

We also need to wish Nick Brady well on his next sailing adventures as he is retiring from the Opti (we are making him team race with us at Midwinters so this was his last fleet race).  Since he is towering over the rest of the fleet it is definitely time to move on to his next challenge. I guess it is time for us to start a 420 program. Good luck Nick and thanks for being part of SailStrong in these first few months. 

Long sail to Stiltsville

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Since we have had so much good sailing this week we decided to make today an adventure and head out to Stiltsville for lunch. Stiltsville is a group of houses in Biscayne Bay just south of Key Biscayne. Thomas was excited to do this for the second year in a row and I think this will be an annual event for our Orange Bowl practice. Have to throw some fun into the mix 🙂