Sail1Design sat down with Lior Lavie, coach of the US Optimist World Champion Team Race Team (see article). This is the first time a US team has won the team race worlds!
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, how did you start sailing, and how did you begin coaching?
I’m Lior Lavie, born and raised in Israel in a small village name Michmoret. I’ve started sailing Opti’s at age 7 in my local sailing club, and then moved to the club next door Sdot- Yam sailing club, where is sailed 420’s and 470.
As you know in Israel after graduation from high school every boy and girl needs to serve 3 years in the Israeli army. I was fortunate enough to be included in a special athlete program that allowed me to continue sailing and representing my country in the 470 Olympic class. After those 3 years, my crew decided to go study and our Optimist coach at the club, Shahaf Amir – former 470 world champion, told me that he want me to become the new Opti coach at Sdot Yam sailing club. And sure enough I agreed and started coaching.
Were you yourself an Optimist sailor, and if so, how far did you take it?
I’ve been sailing Opti’s and was the national champion in last two years of my Opti career. Israel does not have a lot of money to send the team to IODA World championships, but I’ve represented my country in the IODA Europeans.
How did you become the US Optimist Team Race Team Coach?
At the end of 2012 I moved to the US, and started coaching in Miami. During the summer of 2013 I was chosen to coach my first US international team at British Nationals in Largs, Scotland. I’ve continued being involved in the Opti class in the states, aka USODA and coached several IODA continental championships. Twice IODA Europeans, and IODA South Americans. This year the committee of USODA picked me to coach the team the will participate at IODA World championship. This was the first time I coach at that event.
Can you introduce us to the team? You had five members, yes? Tell us about them.
The team is formed based on the results of USODA Team Trails the was held this year in San Francisco. The top 5 finishers get the “ticket” or spot to represent the US at the World championship. Here are the team members by order of finish at Team Trails.
– Justin Callahan: Justin is 13 years old, from Cape Coral FL. Justin has a twin brother Mitchell that is his best training partner and pushes him to his limits.
– Zane Rogers: Zane is 14 years old, from Kemah, TX. Zane is a great Opti sailor that masters the art of efficiency. His equipment is always the best, and his professional attitude and consistent sailing takes him a long ways
– Sam Bruce: Same is 14 years old, from Severna Park, MD. Sam’s attitude is quiet, calm and does not let the surroundings get to him. Very mature sailor and also has a twin brother that just couple days ago finished 4th at IODA Europeans championship.
– Thomas Hall: Tomas is 13 years old, from Philadelphia PA. This was Thomas 3rd world championship in a row. And the only sailor in the US history to win the Nations Cup twice! (It has been won only twice, and in both Thomas was part of the team).
– Bella Casaretto: Bella is 13 years old, from Fort Lauderdale FL. Bella is the lady in our team, bringing the feminine spirit and balance to the competitive boys. Bella had demonstrated throughout this event strong mental skills and sportsmanship like no one else has.
Fill us in on the regatta in Portugal. What were the highs, and the lows?
We flew to Portugal 14 days before the first race of the championship. This is a long time to prepare the sailors to peak at the right moment. It takes a lot of understanding of the dynamics of the team, and how the sailors are feeling. To make a note, we’ve sailed 20 out of 22 days we were in Portugal. Probably the most difficult part for me as a coach was to keep the team focused and sharp. That saying, sleep enough, eat properly, not fight, respect each other and the other competitors and always stay low profile until they cross the finish in the last race of the championship.
The highs of course were winning “Nations Cup” – this trophy is given to the best performance country in the fleet racing championship. They calculate the finishes of top 4 boats of each country and who ever has the lowest points wins. As a coach, and for the country this is the most prestigious trophy. And as well, winning Team Racing World Championship. The race against Singapore (which are ranked number 1 in the world was probably the most intense moment for us as a team). Our sailors were the only undefeated country.
This is an historic achievement. No US team has ever won the Opti TR Worlds. How does it feel as the coach?
It feels great. I’ll be honest and say that I come from a country without a big team racing history. And I got exposed in the states to the art of team racing. I was lucky enough throughout those 3 and half years I’m here in the US, to work with great team racing coaches and learned a lot from them. It is an historic event in modern sailing and very hard to achieve.
Where do you go from here as a coach?
As I write this I’m currently in Newport RI, but after IODA Worlds, I flew to coach Antigua and Uruguay at the IODA North Americans where we won first place over all with Uruguay – amazing achievement by itself. And now getting ready to head to Houston for the US Optimist National Championship.
Why is the Optimist such a popular boat for kids? Are there any downsides to the boat and class?
I guess it’s cheap, and there are so many boat builders around the world that it makes it very accessible. I think that the Opti is the worst hydrodynamic object to sail on. With its trapezoid hull and flat square bow plus the combination of HUGE foils compared to size of hull is very difficult to sail fast. Saying that if you are able to make it go faster than the boats around you, then there is something special in that sailor. That’s my opinion. Speed = able to execute strategy and tactics.
What words of advice can you give to both coaches and young sailors about international team race competition?
For coaches – be engaged with the team. Coaching is also off the water.
For sailors – respect your teammates, understand that everyone is trying the best they can and might do mistakes. DO NOT criticize your team mates.
Finally, congratulations on this incredible achievement. Do you think this is the beginning of a better presence for the USA internationally, both in Optimist sailing and beyond?
If you look at the last year in Opti sailing at the IODA Continental:
IODA Europeans – Gold Medal
IODA South Americas – Bronze Medal
IODA North Americas – Gold Medal
IODA Worlds – Nations Cup & Gold Medal Team Racing
Bronze medal at the IODA Asians championship.
These are only top 3 finishes without counting others in top 10… but as we know life keeps going on and new generations come forward and do their best 🙂
Thank you very much…
Lior and Maya (my sailing coach dog)
Blog
2016 Optimist North Americans Report & Results: Antigua
By Taylor Penwell
The Antigua Yacht Club hosted the 2016 Optimist North American Championship this past week. 144 competitors from 20 countries attended the event. Antigua hosted the 2015 Optimist North Americans and proved itself as a venue with wind, waves, heritage and beauty. It was no surprise with last year’s 
success, Antigua decided to host the event for the second consecutive year.
The event had four days of fleet racing along with one day of team racing. The average wind conditions for racing were 10-15 knots with gusts of 20 knots. Three days of fleet racing decided the qualifying for the last day’s separation into the gold, silver and bronze fleets.
Team Racing
The team racing was divided into two groups. Nations from North America competed in the North American Team Race Championship, while nations from other continents competed in the Nations Cup. In the Nations Cup, results were Chile in 1st, Australia in 2nd and Peru in 3rd. Team USA 1 bested Team USA 2 in the finals for 1st place in the North American Team Race Championship with Mexico 1 in 3rd place.
USA 1 Wins the North American Team Racing Championship
Fleet Racing
Hernan Umpierre of Uruguay dominated the four days of fleet racing. Hernan finished with 13 net points, discarding his worst race, which was a 5th. USA sailor Stephan Baker placed 2nd overall with two bullets and a third place finish on the last day of racing. Benjamin Fuenzalida of Chile took 3rd place. Mia Nicolosi of the United States Virgin Islands finished top girl with a 4th place overall.
2016 Optimist North American Champion Hernan Umpierre
Results Here
Full Fleet Racing: http://optinam2016.org/Docs/NAM2016day4v5.htm
North American Team Race Championship: https://sail1design.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/RESULTSNAM.pdf
Nations Cup: https://sail1design.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/RESULTSNC.pdf
Profiles in Pro Sailing: Roy Williams
By Joe Cooper
When I read that one of Newport’s local powerhouses in high school sailing, St.. Georges, had won the National Team Racing the Baker Trophy, it was an easy call to contact Roy Williams their head coach to check in.
S1D: Roy, congratulations on the win. Before we dig into that, give me a sketch of your background please.
RW: Thank you, the kids did a great job and the win was not clear until the finish of the last race. My background? Well I grew up sailing in Wales, in the UK sailing dinghies: International Cadet’s, 420’s, 505’s of all kinds small boats. This dinghy background is typical of most of the sailing clubs in the UK, very dinghy oriented and fewer ‘yachts’. I have been in the US for thirty years and have sailed on 110’s, 6 meters everything between and locally here in Newport. My educational background is as a civil engineer but somewhere in there I took a Post graduate Certificate of Education in the UK in Math teaching and outdoor education, and well here I am.
S1D: The Baker, held this year in Anacortes, Washington State had the extremes of weather, windy first day and then light and fluky for the second day. Did you have enough personnel to match weights for the different conditions?
RW: We had a full compliment of nine sailors. We used the same skippers and did use the heavier crews (some of whom were there as our alternate skippers) on the first day but I don’t think that in the FJ’s going too heavy is wise, they are lower freeboard and finer in the bows than the 420’s and if they are too heavy with crew, can get a lot of water in them especially in bad chop. I was really more focused on matching the skills of the crews.
S1D: Given that it was a National Championship, did you bring the big guns as it were?
RW: One of the skippers was Will Logue, current ISAF 420 US World Youth Champion but we also had one of the crews was a sophomore girl who has only been sailing since she came to St. Georges, so only two years of sailing, just at the end of her second year really.
S1D: You mentioned the regatta really went down to the last leg of the last race…?
RW: Yes, the sailing was 350 or so yards offshore and the angle for viewing was not ideal. In our race against Newport Harbor, they had a 1,2 at the bottom mark and so I did not know what was going to happen until the finish line. Our team managed to get back and win the race with a 2,3,5. In hindsight if they had won that race we would have been tied with them at 10-1 and they would have won the tiebreaker.
S1D: Do you have a formal structure for incoming freshman for joining the team?
RW: No, the only real criteria is if I think a new, non-sailor, is going to put him or herself or other team members at risk I might suggest they take a summer of formal sailing instruction first. We sail on Newport Harbor in the spring and the water is still cold. And for a non-sailor to get experience, it takes away from one of the skilled skippers who is in effect being a sailing instructor, at least for the first few hours so that needs to be weighed in the calculus.
S1D: Big picture philosophy, How do you conduct your sailing, what are you thinking of as you drive down to the boats?
RW: It depends on the part of the season, how far through it we are. In the beginning I concentrate on sailing fast and boat handling. Later on in the season, I concentrate on the finer details of execution. Especially in Team Racing, boat handling is so important so you really have to be good had handling the boat.
S1D: You mentioned earlier on a list of things that ‘win races’, what is that about?
RW: It an exercise we do almost every season. I get the sailors to write down a list of the factors that lead to winning races. This is all over the place as to who thinks what is important. So some of the newer sailors coming from say Opti’s, where there are big fleets, a good start can be almost the entire race. I write up on a white board all the suggestions. Then I draw a big circle that becomes a pie chart, and ask the sailors to allocate a percentage of each factor you can see what the elements are and how to rank them in importance. IT really gets the kids to think about what the different parts are in sailing and between fleet and team racing.
S1D: Are you seeing more girls entering sailing?
RW: I am seeing more girls coming as really good skippers. Sailing is one of the only sports I can think of where men and women compete as equals on the same field where there can be direct confrontation between them while competing. At the Women’s Championship (The Herreshoff Trophy) this year we had three qualifying regattas to get to 16 finalists. A few years ago we could only muster 10 schools with out qualifiers so in that sense yes, there are more girls in sailing, at least steering.
S1D: I noticed looking back through results that the same teams, especially from California are always in the hunt. Over a four-year cycle with high school and college sailing you can get fortunate and have good sailors all four years, but these schools have been in the top for 10 plus years. What is your take on this? More sailing time, sunny California?
RW: I don’t think it is more sailing time, we practice roughly the same amount of ‘formal’ total hours as the west coast teams, although they do sail far more fleet racing regattas than we do here on the East Coast. They do a lot more ‘messing about in boats’ sailing though. The really successful schools are in the sailing hub cities, Newport Beach and San Diego in particular. They are nearly all, if not all, Sabot sailors but early on they may spend time jumping in an out of other boats, such as FJs. This time in other boats, even though informal, certainly helps develop boat handling and boat speed. And again, early on, they do a lot of Sabot fleet racing, on courses that are a lot like the courses sailed at high school and college, so they are keyed up tactical situations. Good boat speed and boat handling, with solid tactics, makes for pretty skilled sailors.
S1D: Roy, thank you and again congratulations to you and the team
RW: My pleasure, thank you
The First Years as a Sailing Coach
By Northeast Airwaves writer Paige Hoffman
With summer sailing in full swing, the peak of competitive sailing is at its height. Summer race teams and recreational classes alike are running all over the country. Everyone remembers the first time they started their journey as a sailor. Some didn’t begin sailing until high school or college, but many others started off in summer junior sailing programs. As a result, many of these sailors end up working as summer instructors in the programs they learned to sail in. Whether you began your racing days in Green Fleet, or were new to sailing altogether when you began competing, chances are you have some experience working in or around a junior program.
With over twelve hundred registered yacht clubs in the United States, and countless community boating programs, there is always a demand for sailing instructors. Consequently, many high school and college sailors, sailing students themselves, find jobs working in programs like these. I grew up sailing at Duxbury Bay Maritime School, and as a result found it easy to acquire a job there, having had connections with the Junior Sailing Program director through high school sailing. Getting the job was easy enough, but I soon realized that coaching is a lot more than simply being a competent sailor myself.
Like most junior instructors, I started off at age sixteen teaching classes as a sort of assistant to a more experienced instructor. This experience was invaluable to me as a person with really no prior teaching knowledge. I was able to learn the ropes of working with young sailors while making money and preparing myself for teaching more independently. Menial tasks, filling gas tanks, dropping marks, bailing boats, unpleasant as they seem, create hardworking and well-conditioned sailors. Being a junior instructor is sort of like being a freshman in high school or college. You’re expected to listen and work diligently, but also to make mistakes and learn from them. I can still remember the devastation I felt as a first year instructor when I fell out of a docked boat and lost a radio. It wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but at the time, confessing to my boss was daunting. It helps to remember that even the oldest and most senior of sailing coaches were young once too, and that they too have broken equipment, lost equipment, and circumstantially made the same mistakes that young instructors are making now. If there is one thing to stress about being a junior instructor, it’s that you too are a student in this point in your teaching career. Listening to and watching how the older instructors teach and handle their students is a big part of your job too. Taking a backseat role and simply letting them take charge is not preparing you to be a competent teacher yourself. No matter how many times you have to fight for students attention, or tow them upwind when they can’t figure out how to get out of irons, the actions you take towards preparing your students as sailors will help you prepare you as a coach.
Explaining to children the fundamentals of sailing helps you to gain a deeper understanding of the sport and take pride in your own abilities as a sailor, something that can never be accomplished in any way but spreading a love and understanding of the water to others. You can sail in the most competitive events in the world, participate in the highest-level clinics in sailing, but if you never spread your appreciation for the sport onto others, you will never quite experience the kind of pride you feel watching a young sailor catch onto the sport and succeed.
About Paige Hoffman, Northeast/High School Sailing Airwaves Reporter
Paige started sailing at age ten at Duxbury Bay Maritime School. By age twelve, she was competing in Optis and transitioned to 420 sailing when she was fourteen, becoming a member of the Duxbury High School sailing team as a freshman in high school and racing through club programs at Duxbury Bay Maritime school in the fall and summer seasons. In the summer, she works as a Junior Sailing Instructor at Duxbury Bay Maritime School, teaching younger sailors the fundamentals of sailing. In 2016, she helped her team win the Mass Bay League Team Race Championship and was named co-captain of her team for the 2017 spring season.
ILCA Boat Grant Recipients win Lightning ACC's
This weekend the International Lightning Class held their Atlantic Coast Championship on waters off Wrightsville Beach, NC. Carolina Yacht Club hosted the event and certainly demonstrated true southern hospitality throughout the event in preparation of hoisting the 2017 North American Championship.
The event began with Greg Fisher (College of Charleston, Director of Sailing) and Brian Hayes (North Sails One Design) leading a clinic for the early arriving teams. These clinics, know to the class as Lightning Labs, are very intuitive seminars directed at performance in the Lightning. This session began with a short shore session where Greg and Brian talked about a few nuances of sail trim and fine tune controls in breezy conditions. After this quick shore session, 12 boats hit the water for some practice races with Greg and Brian coaching and videotaping. Conditions were perfect to knock out four good races and a few practice starts. The clinic wrapped up late in the afternoon with an hour long video debrief about sail trim and boat handling.
Racing began Saturday AM with a SW breeze and a 3-foot ocean swell. Three races were sailed with three different winners; Doug Wake, Ched Proctor & George Harrington. Other notables on the day were Greg Fisher, Peter Hogan and Eric Oetgen.
Sunday’s races began around 1130 after a quick postponement on the water. The breeze was light and from the SE with a very light ocean swell. Peter Hogan and Tommy Allen took the bullets in the two remaining races. Other notables were Gordon Wolcott (Boat Grant Recipient), Carter Cameron and Bill Mauk.
The real story behind this event is the overall winner with 5, 3, 10, 2 & 6 for finishes. Gordon Wolcott from Virginia Beach with his crew Elizabeth “Lizzie” Chambers from Mooresville, NC and Chris Stessing from Buffalo, NY sailed to very consistent finishes throughout the event to take tie with Greg Fisher (with his wife JoAnn and daughter Martha) and win the tiebreaker. This team is one of the 2016 Boat Grant Teams*. This is only the 2nd event that they have sailed in a Lightning and the first major event in the class. This win certainly sends a statement that our Boat Grant Program* is working and we are finding great sailors. Congratulations to Gordon, Lizzie and Chris on the win!
*To learn more about the International Lightning Class Boat Grant Program, you can visit our class page or see this Scuttlebutt article from May 16, 2016.
Overall Results
Interview with the Winners
Ida Lewis: the Stories Behind the Podium
By Airwaves writer Sammy Pickell
The 2016 U.S. Junior Women’s Doublehanded Championships in Mississippi welcomed its sailors with the famous Bay St. Louis presence of both humidity and southern hospitality. The event offered 29 competitive teams from all across the country the opportunity to culminate their stories of preparation and hard work in three days of racing. For some, the event served as a stepping stone for other national events later in the summer, particularly allowing the top two
teams to qualify for the Youth Championships held in August. For others, placing at Ida Lewis would serve as the pinnacle of their sailing careers thus far. Ida presented every team with an equal opportunity to showcase everything they have learned about sailing a club 420.
Much of the preparation for the three days of racing came from the critical two days before the regatta. World class coaches at the top of their craft in both college sailing and high level competitive youth sailing helped prepare all the girls at practice clinics. Sailors and coaches tinkered with their charter boats and worked together on boat handling skills later out on the water, as steady southerly winds funneled in usually after scattered thunderstorms dissipated by the venue. Coaches not only emphasized the importance of fine tuning and rigging, but also of
hydration in the humid environment. Sailors also met their generous host families for the week and settled in at host homes of Bay St. Louis locals, another crucial aspect to building up peak performance. Emma Batcher from San Diego, California called a large summer house with 17 other girls her home for the week. “The host family’s importance can’t be overstated,” said Emma. “We are all able to do our best in an unfamiliar place thanks to the hospitality of our families.”
Emma Batcher’s host family may have held the key to her success. She and her skipper
Amanda Majernik narrowly made the podium, securing a fifth place after some strong finishes
throughout the week. Even more impressive, her skipper’s journey to Ida Lewis started off in the
front of the boat, as Amanda crewed at the 2015 Ida Lewis and only began her debut as a skipper
that same summer as well. Amanda and third place skipper Tanner Chapko, also from San Diego,
share similar stories. Tanner began her experience with double-handed boats as a strong crew,
working for years to master her trapping skills and jib trim. However, she soon learned she was a
force to be reckoned with in the back of the boat as well. Tanner and her crew Megan Lansdale
made success imminent as well as enjoyable with their many laughs during the week and mutual
understanding of each other as crews.
Another team on the podium hailing from California, the fourth place boat included fifth
time veterans to the Ida Lewis regatta Aitana and Lorea Mendiguren. Their journey together
began long before their sailing partnership did, as twins sailing against each other since they
were young. The twins began their Ida Lewis journeys barely old enough to compete and now
finished up their experience during their last summer sailing together before college. Reaching
this spot on the podium has been a long and memorable journey for them both. “I’ll miss my
sister and it’ll be difficult because I have come to understand what she needs from a crew, so the
transition will be tough,” says Lorea. “But I’m always up for a new challenge and love meeting
people who love sailing as much as I do.” Lorea and Aitana will part ways for the first time in
fall— Lorea to the University of Southern California and Aitana across the country to the George
Washington University. The twins will also part ways as teammates after five years of Ida.
Contrary to Lorea and Aitana’s long involvement in the championships, both the winning
team and the runner up are relatively new to the club 420 and are first time Ida Lewis
competitors. The winners of the entire regatta, Sarah Burn and Patricia Gerli, grew up in New
Jersey dominating the Optimist fleet; each immediately transferred this power into Ida Lewis—
one of their first club 420 regattas. Similarly, in the case of the second place team including
skipper Michelle Lahrkamp and Gabrielle Delbello, Michelle only finished up sailing optimists
last summer. Both sets of girls are only incoming sophomores, giving them plenty of time to
keep building on their already huge accomplishments from the week.
The podiums at national sailing events present much more than skillful sailors able to tactically overcome competition out on the race course. Behind each team called up to receive their trophy, separate stories of preparation make the end result incredibly special after so much time and effort spent training for the event. Each Ida Lewis clearly differs from the next, but the level of talent exhibited by young women on the water is a factor that surely won’t change as long as the regatta is around.
