I don't think that wind and weather gods could have given us a better week of sailing! Most mornings started off with North winds of about 10 knots, and gradually the Southwest sea breeze filled in almost every day to around 15 knots. With sun on our shoulders and wind on our backs we have sailed through the first week of sailing school.
Some highlights from the week:
In the Seamen class sailors successfully sailed around a triangle course and played a little sponge basketball. We have had our first skipper of the day. This is awarded every day to someone in Seamen class who skippers for most of the day, and hopefully with a smile on their face! On Wednesday this was given to Jack Welburn.
In Opti C we have had quite the rollercoaster of a week. The first day was a little windy, but everyone came back for more sailing on Tuesday and we were all pleasantly surprised to have nice calm winds, and smooth easy sailing. The Opti C students are ready to take their boats out by themselves next week!
Opti B had an awesome class on Wednesday. They worked through huge swells which seemed to swallow up the optis, and managed to maintain their cool while sailing windward leewards and practicing follow the leader.
There has been a lot of progress in Opti A as well. After working on it all week, the class finally completed a successful Rabbit Start in which a boat on port tack sails upwind, and everyone else lines up on Starboard tack to successively duck the port tack boat. Courtney Quirk was the first successful rabbit.
420 Skippers got off to a good start. With only 3 420s in the class, there has been very close instruction, and in turn a lot of progress. They worked on perfecting their downwind legs yesterday, and will hopefully start using spinnakers next week.
The 420 race team has shown huge improvements since last summer. We have seen great trapping, some good spinnaker work and a lot of enthusiasm towards racing. They have their first club on club Team Race scrimmage next week against Hyannisport. We're hoping for good clean racing and a lot of fun!
The parent meeting will happen today at 4 p.m. I will post and e-mail bullets from the meeting for those of you who can not make it.
Both 420 and opti sailors will be sent to West Dennis Yacht Club this coming Monday for an invitational regatta. If you haven't signed up already make sure you do so on the bulletin board outside the office!
The next upcoming regattas are the Stage Harbor Opti Regatta on Friday the 16th, look for a sign-up sheet for that. The Women's Gill Trophy begins on Sunday the 11th for 420 sailors, we will hopefully be sending a couple of boats to that.
Lets make sure we send positive thoughts to our sailors going off to regattas!
Don't forget the Fourth of July Races this Sunday. If you would like to volunteer patrolling or helping move marks let me know! The Laser races will commence at 9:30, not the previously announced 10 o'clock.
See you on the water!
Sally
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