The Techno 293 U.S. National Championship crowned new champions after three days of ideal conditions at Vineyard Haven Yacht Club from August 3 -5. Thirty-four competitors traveled to Vineyard Haven, MA from as far as Mexico, US Virgin Islands, Canada, California and Florida to compete in Under 19, U17, U15 and U13 age groups.

Jean Sebastian Fugere (age 16) from Quebec was particularly strong in the winds over 20 knots, and won the U17 class and the overall title. Vineyard Haven favorite Rasmus Sayre (13) won the U15 title and showed mastery over a wide range of conditions to take second in the fleet overall. Olin Davis from St. Thomas, USVI won the U19 class and placed fifth overall. Maximo Nores from Miami Yacht Club is the Under 13 champion, which bodes well for MYC’s fast growing windsurf program. Ry Brodsky from West Tisbury, MA took the Silver Fleet in a series of figure eight reaching courses.

“It’s a typical day at Niantic Bay,” said Niantic Bay Yacht Club (NBYC) Past Commodore Harlan Fredericksen. “Breezy, blue skies, and eighty degrees.” Breezy was an understatement, as gusts peaked at 26 knots during the Larry White Junior Regatta on July 22. This annual USA Junior Olympic Sailing Festival event honors the NBYC member responsible for the expansion of high school sailing from 50 teams located in New England to more than 400 across the country.

The 112 competitors proved more than fair-weather sailors. The dedication displayed by the 72 boats comprising the 420, Laser and Optimist fleets exhibited the building phenomenon of youth sailing that White started. Showing particular spirit in the heavy breeze was the Opti Green fleet. Five out of eight boats were first time racers who never experienced such extreme breeze and waves. “Sometimes it would get too windy, but I stuck it out because I wanted to accomplish my goal,” said Catherine Guanci, age 10 (NBYC). Not one Green fleeter capsized during the regatta. Asked if she was apprehensive about capsizing, first-timer Carley Jagel (NBYC) said, “It’s a boat. If you turtle, you just come right back up.”

The boats are small, but they have big names. There is Tenacity. There is Triumph. Audacity, launched this spring, is the 30th vessel to come out of the workshop. The 14-foot Whitehall rowboat — a common sight in New York Harbor two centuries ago — was built from a 265-year-old white oak that grew in the New York Botanical Garden before it blew down in a storm last August. Audacity is a luxury model, complete with hand-carved footrests and built-in storage. Painted on the bow is a shark’s mouth zig-zagged with huge teeth.

Yet the most unusual thing about the boat may be who made it: a group of kids in the South Bronx, NY. They are part of Rocking the Boat, a small and unusual organization in Hunts Point that teaches local teenagers how to build traditional boats by hand, in the process teaching them about teamwork, potential, achievement and much more. Daniel Martinez Patino, 18, remembers being nervous when he joined the organization — especially about introducing himself to a group. Today, he is more outgoing. “I feel comfortable and loved.” Patino says. “I feel like I met another side of myself, one that I never knew existed. Now, all I dream about is sailing.” Rocking the Boat started in 1998 with a dozen students and the plans for one boat. Today, it serves 3,000 people a year. “We started off using wooden boats as a way of turning kids onto their own possibilities,” says Adam Green, Rocking the Boat’s founder and executive director. “To help them stand out in their own minds. Connect what they were doing in school to real life. That hasn’t changed at all.”

A group of students in the Young Mariners Foundation’s (previously known as Stamford Sailing Foundation) after-school program have put the skills they learned in the American Red Cross Basic Aid Training (B.A.T.) course to good use by saving two lives.

In January, Kathy Biehl, a staff member at Toquam School in Stamford, CT, was eating lunch with students from the Young Mariners program when she began choking. While Mekhi Robinson ran to notify the school nurse, Alexander Jean-Noel and Markese Bryan helped Biehl dislodge the food in her throat, thereby saving her life. The next day, Julia Medbury, another Young Mariner, started choking during lunch with friends at school. She calmly stood up and began giving herself abdominal thrusts as she had just learned and was able to immediately clear her airway.

The StormTrysail Foundation, in partnership with the Larchmont Yacht Club and Junior Sailing Association of Long Island Sound, held its 14th Annual Junior Safety at Sea Seminar on Friday, July 16 at the end of Larchmont Junior RaceWeek. Two hundred and ten junior sailors from 20 clubs attended. The clubs in attendance were: American, Beach Point, Black Rock, Cedar Point, Cold Spring Harbor, Huguenot, Indian Harbor, Larchmont YC,Manhasset Bay, Noroton, Norwalk, Pequot, PortWashington, Riverside, Sea Cliff, Seawanhaka Corinthian, and Stamford. And for the first time, there were juniors representing the Larchmont Shore Club, Orienta Beach Club, and the Young Mariners (formerly Stamford Sailing Foundation).

During these 14 years, over 2,800 juniors and their instructors have received training at Larchmont, and another 1,000 in Newport, RI, Annapolis,MD, and Raritan Bay, NJ. StormTrysail Safety at Sea Chairman Richard duMoulin explained: “The StormTrysail Foundation was created by the StormTrysail Club to support and expand the Junior Safety-at-Sea Program and the Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta.We believe that big boat sailing provides juniors an exciting challenge and the opportunity for a lifetime for adventures and great friendships. But we want them to do it safely.”

In winning the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association/Gill National Championship for the first time, the Boston College Eagles became the sixth team to win all three spring collegiate sailing championships (the ICSA Women’s Nationals, ICSA/APS Team Race Nationals and the ICSA/Gill National Championship), along with Navy, Old Dominion, Tufts, St. Mary’s and Harvard. Light air prevailed for the National Championship, which was held May 25 to June 3 on Lake Mendota in Madison, WI. “The conditions made it a tiny bit anticlimactic, but it feels good,” said BC Head Coach Greg Wilkinson.

Last month, we interviewed Windsurfing Task Force member Nevin Sayre about windsurfing for junior sailors in the USA (Youth Windsurfing Gets a Reboot, May 2010). Ned Crossley, a US SAILING certified Windsurfing Instructor Trainer, says clubs and sailing centers can develop better sailors by integrating this exciting sport into their programs.

What is an all-around sailor? Can you rig, sail all points of sailing, and tack and jibe a:

___ Laser?
___ Keelboat with spinnaker?
___ Optimist?
___ Windsurfer?
___ Catamaran?

If you can check all of the above then you are an all-around sailor, like the all-around gymnast that works every event or the decathlete in track & field. If you think you can basically sail all ten of the Olympic one-design classes but are unable to sail a windsurfer, then you’re immediately astern because Men’s and Women’s Windsurfing comprise 20% of the Olympic sailing events.

Larchmont YC’s Harry Koeppel Qualifies for Worlds; Noroton YC’s Megan Grapengeter-Rudnick is Top Girl in the US.

For the fifth year in a row and six of the past seven years, LISOT (Long Island Sound Optimist Team) has a sailor on the USA World Optimist Team! And for the fifth year in a row, LISOT is also home to the top female Optimist sailor in the United States.

After 13 windy and grueling races over four days at the USODA (United States Optimist Dinghy Association) Team Trials, hosted by Texas Corinthian Yacht Club in Houston, TX. Harry Koeppel (Larchmont YC) finished fifth and qualified for the 5-sailor USA World Team, a mere two points out of third place in the 185-boat fleet.