Sail1Design would like to welcome our newest intern/reporter, Sammy Pickell, to our Airwaves team. Sammy is a high school student and sailor on the Corona del Mar team, and will focus on west coast & high school sailing!
Pacific Coast Championships: Competition Pushes Corona del Mar Sailing Team to the Top!
In summer 2006, two competitive eight-year-olds, Derek Pickell and Rhodes Garner, stood out particularly among racers in the junior sailing sabot program at Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club. The two boys, constantly alternating wins with one another at Southern California regattas, pushed each other to fly up the fleets and rankings, to say the least. However, soon after reaching the more advanced fleet of sabots, Rhodes switched over to Newport Harbor Yacht Club permanently.
Ten years later, now on a new team together, both eighteen year-olds stood proudly holding their trophy with our Corona del Mar High School sailing team. These two had returned, and improved upon their former success that sailing on a team together brought them; Rhodes and Derek led the Corona del Mar Seakings to the Pacific Coast Championship for the Seakings’ first time in decades.
After half our team graduated preceding the 2014-2015 season, the two senior boys first took on the responsibility of skippering our Varsity Gold Division, as the only two upperclassmen skippers on the team. Though obviously racing against different sailors in separate divisions, unlike the sabot days, each boy’s competitive nature and excellent scores constantly motivated the other before his race— a recurring relationship of amicable competition benefiting our sailing team. It was never about Rhodes and Derek simply fighting for scores against competing schools; the sense of the Seakings’ community comes with pushing teammates to race stronger and better, and they were no exception. For many years, the CdM team had constantly fallen as underdogs— always close behind Newport Harbor and Point Loma, yet always edged out. We constantly managed to take third or fourth places, only narrowly qualifying for the Mallory in 2015.
This year at the 2016 Pacific Coast Championships at the US Sailing Center in Long Beach, an area famous for its voracious windsurfers and breezy conditions, our team had our work cut out for us. Heading into the regatta, we ranked third place behind Point Loma and Newport Harbor, the 2015 national champions. To qualify for the Mallory, CdM needed to place in the top four at least. PCISA has over 58 schools actively participating in regattas and is one of the fastest growing regions in the nation. With such a strong sailing presence throughout California, the competition never lulls, and we knew the Pacific Coast Championships would be no exception.
On the first day of the qualifier, the race committee kept the 22 schools racing continuously from about 11am to 6pm. The wind began light and shifty, thankfully a condition very familiar to Corona del Mar. The drastically shifting offshore breeze made it necessary for us to play the sides of the course intelligently and facilitated the importance of focusing on boat speed. As a 10-12 knot breeze began to fill midway through the day, keeping our boats completely flat became essential. Small waves also emphasized the need for good boat handling and warranted the infantile stages of surfing on the downwind legs. The race committee kept a pace of fast rotations to achieve as many races as possible. Rhodes and I (A division) and Derek and Victoria Thompson (B division) each began and ended the day with consistent, upper fleet scores. We ended the day smoothly and secured a second place behind the Francis Parker School, with Point Loma on our tails.
On Sunday, the sailors faced almost identical conditions as Saturday. It was still fair game for any team— the point values were so close that CdM could not afford to make a blunder during a race. Rhodes and I managed to secure strong pin starts at the
beginning of the day, as Derek and Tori sailed more conservatively from the middle. Nonetheless, each team sailed well, Derek and Rhodes always remembering to exchange advice to the other on the rotation dock about the constantly shifting wind. ! Rhodes and I ended the day in second place, and Derek and Tori directly responded to his success with two strong finishes crucially ahead of Point Loma. Constantly on the cusp of greatness, with its senior boys’ strong competition and teamwork with one another paving the way, the CdM sailing team finally broke through the underdog status— finally ahead of Point Loma and Newport Harbor.
(for full results click HERE)
Teamwork in the CFJ is prevalent everywhere— from the actions between the skipper and crew to assisting your teammates in being mentally and physically prepared come race time. An often forgotten aspect in the process of working as a team is the inner rivalries among team players— the competitiveness and the drive to exceed your teammate’s previous performances. For CdM’s case, the two skippers had pushed each other to the top since sailing sabots from the same yacht club. Inner team competition is a force that molds champion sailors, but more importantly, it creates champion teams. Nationals, here we come!
Corona del Mar, Point Loma, Newport Harbor, and Santa Barbara are headed to nationals this May 14-15 in Charleston, South Carolina !
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