Cody Kowalski and McKenzie Ginther putting the hurt on the fleet with a decisive bullet (the rest of the fleet is out of the picture!). Photo by Erik Coburn
High school sailing has grown so much that the Northwest District (www.nwisa.org) may be splitting in to two regions. While the PT team has gotten a lot better, the whole district has as well, making every regatta a nail biter for the team. At a South Region Regatta March 9th in Silverdale, PT qualified one team for the Gold fleet and one for the Silver fleet. A similar regatta for the North Region took place in Bellingham on Lake Whatcom the same day. The Gold and Silver fleets of both divisions then met this weekend in Seattle at Sail Sandpoint on Lake Washington.
After a shifty-puffy-uppy-downy Saturday breeze which ranged from five knots to over 20, Port Townsend sailors were tired but happy. The Gold fleet team was in 1st out of 26 boats. The Silver fleet team was sitting in 5th out of 26.
The Gold teams would race two races, about twenty minutes each, then come in and swap out the boats with the Silver fleet teams. Each team would have two boats on course for each race, but the format was fleet racing. Sounds confusing, but let’s just say a whole bunch of good sailors did a whole bunch of racing at Sail Sandpoint this weekend. All told, there were over 140 high school sailors.
Going into the last few races, PT Gold which had been leading all regatta, fell into third place. Due to an amazing finish of A and B Division of 3rd and 4th during what turned out to be the last race of the regatta PT came back and won the Gold fleet. Gold fleet was sailed by three skippers rotating in: Darby Flanagan, Eliza Dawson and Cody Kowalski. Switching out as crews for them were McKenzie Ginther and Chloe Dawson.
Meanwhile, in the Silver Fleet, PT was boosting their final score by consistent finishes. PT finished 4th out of 26! Silver fleet was sailed by Olivia Gibbons and Anda Yoshina in one boat, and Grant Shogren and Sean Westlund in the other boat.
This was the most successful regatta outing by far for PT in a long time.