Our Port Townsend High School Sailing Team
The Port Townsend High School Sailing Team just celebrated the end of the season with a BBQ and awards ceremony at Fort Townsend State Park. It was a great season with PT continuing to make strides in the district. We basically were finishing in the middle of the fleet very solidly all season long. We also had many great races by each competitor from our youngest to our veterans. This bodes very well, since we had only one senior, Team Captain Jackson Delagarza, and one junior, Team Captain Cooper Parish. The rest of the team is very young yet still very good and especially promising.
The team is comprised of 16 sailors and is coed. It also is comprised of both middle-schoolers and home-schooled kids. While all sailors were deserving of recognition, awards went as followed:
Most Valuable Sailor: Darby Flanagan (Fr.)
Team Captain: Jackson Delagarza (Sr.)
Team Captain: Cooper Parish (Jr.)
Up & Comer: Eliza Dawson (8th)
Sportsmanship: Cody Kowalski (Fr.)
Most Valuable Crew: Britz Grant (Fr.)
Now summer is upon us and we begin yet another “season” of sailing – more on this later as Eliza Dawson and Olivia Gibbons just won the latest youth regatta . We try to fill the whole year with either regattas, practice, video analysis, chalk talks, boat work or time off. It is not a long period of time the sailors are not actually sailing. As a result of this their learning curve is very high, which is necessary to compete in high school sailing (and as they move on, college sailing). Some of them have literally done a few hundred starts and mark roundings this year.
Now that we have developed a competitive HS team the next step towards winning the district (HS) lies with our sailors competing over the summer. This past weekend Eliza Dawson and Olivia Gibbons won the V15 division convincingly through consistency down at Vancouver Lake, WA. Out of 7 V15s, they posted finishes of 2, 1, 3, 1, and 3.
Port Townsend is also a new stop on the Northwest Youth Circuit, hosting approximately 100+ youth sailors July 17th and 18th. Volunteers are needed in many capacities, from helping with the regatta to housing people (backyard space for a tent is fine!) Please e-mail erik _ coburn at hotmail dot com
Things look very bright for youth racing here in Port Townsend. We have a group of great kids who love to sail and compete. Even if you cannot help out with our home regatta, please come on down and watch! It will be run from the Northwest Maritime Center.
Best regards,
Erik Coburn
Coach, Port Townsend High School Sailing Team
720.635.0205