Tag Archives: Orange Bowl

Orange Bowl Regatta

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Congrats to all our sailors at the Orange Bowl International Youth Regatta. We had 11 races in 3 days with unfortunately no wind on the last day. Thomas Rice lead the way for the team, narrowly edging out JC Hermus by 1 point to finish 4th. Very proud to have 2 sailors in the top 5 of such a competitive regatta. Along with Thomas and JC, we had an additional 4 sailors make the top 50 of the 240 boats, and 16 in the top 100.

A big congrats to Chapman Petersen for finishing 3rd in White Fleet. SailStrong has had a sailor on the podium in White Fleet at Orange Bowl every year we have been. It is always exciting to see the future of the class coming up.

Overall Results 

Team Results (240 RWB Optis):

Thomas Rice 4th Overall, JC Hermus 5th Overall, Gray Benson 34th, Maddie Hawkins 36th, Sam Bruce 42nd, Brendan Little 48th, Stan Picard 67th, Harrison Bailey 69th, Madeleine Rice 70th, Alex Mazzeo 72nd, Michael Pinto 77th, Chapman Petersen 79th, 3rd White, Jordan Bruce 81st, Chase Carraway 85th, Nick Chisari 86th, Michelle Lahrkamp 94th, Caroline Benson 114th, Liam Randall 133rd, Matthew Monts 145th, Torrey Chisari 156th, Ian Thomas 160th, Vanessa Lahrkamp 170th, Justin Smith 190th, Adra Ivancich 223rd, Thomas Mazzeo 235

2nd Coach added for Holiday Clinic in Jensen Beach

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With growing demand I have added a second coach, Scott Norman, to the Holiday Clinic at the US Sailing Center Martin County in Jensen Beach, FL. We will sail December 20-23. There are several openings left. Contact for info.

Holiday Optimist Clinic

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We will be hosting our 3rd annual Holiday Opti Clinic December 20-24. This year we are moving it from Miami to the US Sailing Center Martin County in Jensen Beach, FL. Partial attendance is ok and additional dates prior to the 20th are available as well. Please contact for price and additional details.

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 🙂