SIGHTINGS Thirty-six female sailors from the Bay Area, Southern California, the East Coast, and even St. Petersburg, Russia, assembled at St. Francis Yacht Club on July 7-9 for the San Francisco Bay Women's Match Race Clinic and Grade 5 Regatta, organized by Nicole Breault and core members of her Vela Racing team, Molly Carapiet, Dana Riley and Karen Loutzenheiser. StFYC offered its matched set of 10 J/22s for the clinic and regatta. Some of the sailors entered as teams, but more than half entered as individuals, willing to join forces with one another to tackle learning a new game. Many were dinghy sailors, while others had spent years on larger boats and were jumping onto a small keelboat for the first time — and doing so in the ofThe Women's Match Racing Clinegatta at St. Francis YC made use ten-humbling winds of the club's fleet of matched J/22s. and waters just east of the Golden Gate Bridge in July. According to Nicole, "It really took brave hearts and open minds to take on such an intensive task. In the end, we were amazed by the progress every sailor made. It is a testament to what women can do in this sport when they get a chance and go all-in." After two days of classroom work and on-the-water drills, the teams raced a single round-robin, fully umpired Grade 5 regatta on Sunday, with Bartz Schneider serving as principal race officer and Rob Overton as chief umpire. Only a few skippers had ever match raced previously. The objective was to expose experienced women sailors to match racing and instill further interest. Quite a few participants said they would take the extensive course materials back to their home clubs to use as a template for training. Friday's instruction focused on boat handling as a fundamental aspect of match racing. This afforded sailors the chance to get to know one another and the J/22. The four coaches, who comprise a team that regularly match races J/22s, gave specific instruction on individual tasks in getting the boat efficiently through maneuvers, how they support one another in these efforts, and the importance of clear communication. Friday evening shifted the discussion toward the match-racing game, and Saturday's drills exercised tactical thinking and execution in the pre-start and around the course. StFYC race committee volunteers and several of Overton's umpire team supported clinic sessions with mark setting, flag work and a taste of how umpiring works. The sailors fully engaged their brains and their bodies in the learning. Blustery 15- to 20-knot winds and afternoon full-ebb chop did not stop them from trying out aggressive boat-on-boat moves and pushing for improvement. On Sunday morning, racing was delayed briefly while an armada of support boats and kayaks escorted the Golden Rivet Swim from the Golden Gate Bridge, through the race course, to McCovey Cove at AT&T Park. Later, the course was visited by a couple of the humpback whales that have been enjoying the Bay waters these last few weeks. In spite of all these fantastic distractions, the organizers rolled through nine flights of match racing in west-southwesterly winds that built from 10 to 18 knots during the afternoon. Katie Ananina of St. Petersburg, Russia, (currently a student continued on outside column of next sightings page Page 64 •
Latitude 38
• August, 2017
book Of the ‘Three ‘R’s, we enjoy reading the most. By far. ‘Rithmetic? Forgetaboutit. Sure, ‘writing’ is right up there, too. But it takes a lot of work to make that look easy. So, yeah: reading. And it’s a good thing we like it, because we do a lot of it around here, for both research and pleasure. Our favorite theme? You guessed it: sailing. We consider it one of the great perks of this gig that a number of publishers send their newest maritime books to us for review. And because we get so many, we’ve decided to start spreading them out over the year. Here’s a quick look at some of the latest books to cross our desks.
BRUCE STONE
KAREN LOUTZENHEISER
women's match race clinegatta