Sail1Design is pleased to present our youth sailing perspective series “Sailing with Grace”. Grace Lucas, a Sail1Design intern, is a high school senior at Severn School just outside Annapolis, MD, and along with her busy academic schedule, is also a member of the nationally-ranked Severn School Sailing Team. Enjoy!
CJ Buckley Team Race Regatta
Going into the CJ Buckley Team Race Regatta, it was clear within our team that we had no expectations for results. We entered the regatta never before having sailed together as a team, we all simply thought that it would be a good learning experience, and that maybe we could win a couple of races and have fun with it. However, our all girls team from the Annapolis Yacht Club, otherwise known as the Powerpuff Girls, preformed much better than we had expected.
The first day of the regatta opened with a seating round, in which all of the 36 teams were placed in random groups of six where they all of the other teams in their group once, otherwise known as a round robin. Their score during this round carried over to the next round and determined their “seat.” After this, there were six brackets: gold, silver, bronze, red, blue, and white. After the seating round the Powerpuff girls were placed in Silver, as our record was 4-1, our only loss being to the AYC Boys (Team Lady Carolyn). For us, this round did not consist of much team racing. It was blowing about 10-12 knots and we were much lighter than the majority of the other teams, and we used that to our advantage. We fleet raced around the course, and although it did not create the most stable combinations, it did help us win races. However, the second round robin was a completely different story. In the silver bracket we were racing with teams who had a solid foundation of team racing, so fleet racing around the course no longer sufficed. This round robin we went 1-4, much to our dismay, and we were moved down to bronze fleet for the next round robin.
The next morning, the wind conditions were about the same as the day before; 8-12 knots. We were not in the lowest bracket on Race Course One (the umpired race course). In this fleet we did much better than the day before, going 4-1 once again. The race lost, was also lost at the start as one of our boats fouled on the line and had to perform a 360, and from that point it was a game of “catch-up.” Even though we were wining all of these races, our team racing was not where it should have been. We were not communicating well with our other teammates or looking around the racecourse to see what we could do to help each other. We moved back up to silver, which was a little daunting at first. We lost our first race against Team Florida. But after that something clicked within our team. We actually started to listen to Russ (who was our designated coach for the day), and we actually started to team race. We called out our combination for our teammates on the racecourse, we started completing pass backs and stabilizing our combinations, and we got back to winning races. We went 4-1, however we weren’t sure if we were going to move up to gold or stay in silver.
We got to the venue on Saturday and saw that we were placed first in the silver fleet, which we were a little bummed about, however excited because wee were confident in our skills within this group. We got out onto the water, which was completely flat and still. We went into postponement, waiting for even a little bit of wind so that we could start getting races off. During postponement our coaches came up to us and told us that we were moved up into Gold Fleet. Excited as we were, it was nerve wracking, especially as our first race was against the SSA team, who we knew to be good team racers. We ended up losing all of our last five races in the final round robin, and as upsetting as that was, we still got 6th overall in the regatta, which was much better than we expected.
After the final round robin, we tied up our boats to an anchored boat by the finish line, and jumped in the water, proudly cheering on other teams that we knew after they finished. We then took down our mains and hopped on the coach boat to watch the final four in action, especially since it was an amazing opportunity to hear what our coach had to think during the team racing instead of just after. We cheered on the AYC boys before and after the races (much to the dismay of the SSA boys who we also knew from home), and listened to our coach, Russ O’Reilly, as he commentated for us during the races. Watching the races with Russ was very helpful as we could see all the little mistakes that made their stable combinations a little bit less stable or we could see the larger mistakes that cost them a race and what they could’ve done to prevent it. However during the second race we realized that something was wrong with Harrison, and that he was not sailing up to his typical standard. After the race, which the boys lost to Cape Cod Academy, we found out that Harrison’s PS2000 tiller broke and that he was no longer able to steer effectively. Our original plan to fix this problem was to borrow one of the PS2000 tillers from one of the LISOT sailors, as the majority of them have PS2000s. However, this plan was foiled as the LISOT sailors headed in during the past race and were too far away to reach in a reasonable amount of time. Instead, Russ motored us up to our derigged boats, Lilli, Elena, and Emma hopped into our boat, Buttercup, to rig, I pulled up the main, and Stephanie and Julia held on as Russ motored us back down towards the starting boat. Harrison and Evan quickly switched boats with Emma and Elena and went straight into sequence. Emma and Elena (who are both skippers) sailed the boat back up to where we had previously tied up, and the boys went into their third race against Cape Cod Academy, which they won, putting them into the finals against the SSA team.
Now this was a particularly intense final round for us Annapolis girls as both teams consisted of friends and teammates. The next couple of races were very close, as both teams have a solid understanding of team racing and very good boat handling, however the AYC boys triumphed – with Buttercup’s help of course.
Throughout the entire summer, this was my favorite regatta. I can easily say that I learned the most about sailing here, and it was fun to be able to see our team improve such a great amount in such a short period of time – which I completely accredit to our coaches Nick and Russ. It was also a really proud moment for the Annapolis area as the top two teams were from the same small town in Maryland and all three teams that entered from the area ended in the gold fleet. Justin and Kyle Assad worked very hard putting this regatta together, as they have for many years in the past, and what went on this year definitely honored CJ and his love for team racing.
See final CJ Buckley results HERE
Archived Sailing with Grace articles:
Sailin
g with Grace: The Brooke Gonzalez Clinic https://www.sail1design.com/airwaves-sailing-news/general-news/1130-swg1