The team works through some tough spots on the course.
Eight members of the Bainbridge High School sailing team traveled to San Juan Island last Saturday for the Islands Cup Regatta.
The competition, hosted by Friday Harbor High School, drew high school sailors from Olympia, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Central and North Kitsap, Anacortes, Orcas and Bainbridge and Friday Harbor. Vanguard 15 class boats were supplied by Friday Harbor and Orcas.
Twenty boats on the starting line in the early fleet races were an excellent practice opportunity for the national double-handed championship coming up in May which has a similar number of boats participating.
Bainbridge was allotted three boats and sailing began with six fleet races (no A and B fleet restrictions) in which all the boats participated. Then the racing became divided into team races and fleet races happening concurrently. Bainbridge participated in the team racing section of the later part of the regatta.
Fleet racing is sailed in two separate divisions for each school, an A fleet and a B fleet. (For every A race there must also be a B race, or else the A race score is deleted.)
Only eight players may compete from a school. A sailor from one division may switch to sail in the other division only if he or she has not driven (skippered) a boat and only if he or she has not already switched divisions.
The sun sparkling on the water was welcome as the temperatures remained chilly. Bainbridge had fairly strong starts in the fleet races, and anticipated shifts well to finish in the upper part of the fleet. Orcas sailors took four of the first six wins showing their strength in fleet racing. Maddy Jackson and Evan Stewart won one, Glen Stellmacher and Sean Willerford took three seconds while Emma Hartmann and Kyle Grosten along with Haley Lane and Max Fleischfresser each took a second in these races.
But the team racing was the focus for Bainbridge at this event, and the sailors buckled down to work together. There were three team race opponents: Friday Harbor, Orcas, and North Kitsap.
The first team race start was a poor one for Bainbridge, and the team had to fight back from a losing combination.
By paying attention to the wind shifts and exhibiting better boat handling skills, they were able to execute a 1-2-3 finish, completely dominating Friday Harbor in the race. The second start was better, and although Orcas has very fine sailors, Bainbridge was able to use team tactics to defeat them, finishing 1-2-4.
The last team race, versus North Kitsap, was perhaps the most interesting. Bainbridge again started poorly, and had to work hard to emerge, by the run leg of the trapezoid course, in a 1-2 finish.
The first place Bainbridge boat, however, lost its concentration, and rounded the second trapezoid mark, heading up toward the finish, and leaving out the prescribed leeward mark. North Kitsap, in third, followed the second Bainbridge boat in the direction of the last mark, resulting in a different Bainbridge boat in the lead but a North Kitsap boat in second, much less stable.
With a hail from her teammate, the original Bainbridge leader, now in third, headed down to the proper race mark.
In a perfectly executed maneuver, the lead Bainbridge boat, sailed by Stellmacher and Willerford, quickly took control of the North Kitsap boat and luffed her to slow her, allowing his teammate to regain the lead, and following in second, effectively restored the stable 1-2 combination for the Bainbridge win.
Although Bainbridge returned from this regatta undefeated in the team racing, there is a lot of practice needed especially in starting, and the team will be working hard to improve starts as well as boat handling and tactics before the district championships in May.
