The Bainbridge High School Sailing Team wound up its competitive season with two regattas held over Memorial Day weekend.
Half of the team, comprised of the event qualifiers, traveled to Lake Minnetonka Yacht Club in Minnesota for the Toby Baker Team Racing National Championship to determine the winner of the coveted Baker Trophy for high school team racing.
The other half of the sailing team raced in the Port Townsend Memorial Day Regatta, a fleet race regatta run by Port Townsend High School off Point Hudson.
Twelve schools from around the U.S. are selected by elimination to compete in this prestigious regatta. Bainbridge qualified in the team racing district championship two weeks ago.
Their trip to Minnesota was made special by the host family, that of Tom Kordonowy, brother of Bainbridge Mayor Darlene Kordonowy, who loaned their comfortable home to the team for the event.
Each race boat was equipped with a GPS tracking device, which was able to provide a downloaded moving graph of the boat’s path on the race course. It was possible to replay each race upon request, and analyze the tactics used. Also on the graphs were wind direction changes and their effect on the fleet, and boat speed in knots.
Sailing on Lake Minnetonka was especially windy on Saturday and the E scow class sailboat races were cancelled, but the brave and talented high school sailors continued racing in the 420 class sailboats, with only a few capsizes.
The 420 planes easily in the winds experienced that day; for instance, at one point the 420 sailed by Emma Hartmann and Haley Lane screeched past their opponents at a ridiculously fast speed of 11 knots on the lower reach leg, but unfortunately the boat capsized in rounding the second leeward mark.
The boat handling by the Bainbridge sailors was very good with few capsizes, although no one escaped a dunk in the cold water. (The ice “went out of the lake” a mere three and a half weeks ago.) The exhilarating planes put big smiles on the faces of all the kids as they came to the beach for the next rotation.
Sixty-six races were completed on Saturday setting up the fleets for gold, silver, and bronze competition on Sunday.
Sunday’s winds were more moderate, perfect for team racing until later on when they became rather light. Bainbridge, like all the teams, was able to exhibit better boat control in these conditions, and everyone looked more like they were racing than surviving. Roll tacks and positioning of boats for team racing advantage was improved.
Although Bainbridge did not win a match in the racing, they did exhibit huge growth in their ability to manage the 420s, and unfamiliar class of two person boat. It was clear that our sailors had great straight line boat speed and good sense of the shifts and puffs, but stopping, trapping, and powering up the boats was less successful, and made team racing difficult.
Nevertheless, Bainbridge did display knowledge of the proper steps and response to attack, and in a few instances was fighting for the win well into the last leg.
Winning the Toby Baker Trophy was St. George’s Academy, with Tabor Academy second, and Point Loma third. Bainbridge finished 12th. Representing the Northwest District of ISSA were team captains Hartmann and Max Fleischfresser, and Nico Papajani, Lane, Abby Hartmann, Ethan Stahl, Chase Webber, and Kyle Grosten.
The Port Townsend Memorial Day Regatta event was structured in an A Fleet, B Fleet format and scored accordingly, although the usual restrictions on substitutions within a team for crew substitutions were waived.
Winds were 5-8 knots and the weather was exceptionally nice for the event.
Participating schools and the number of teams each school fielded were: North Kitsap, which had one team, Kingston which had one team, Port Townsend, which had three teams, Central Kitsap, which had three teams, Bainbridge, which had two teams, Sail Sand Point, which had one team, Mercer Island, which had one team, Anacortes, which had one team, and Inglemoor, which had one team for a total of 15 teams, an excellent turnout.
Bainbridge’s younger sailors were pitted against the varsity sailors of all the other schools and were highly successful in defending the honor of their team, finishing the regatta in fifth (Bainbridge 1) with 78 points, and seventh (Bainbridge 2) with 100 points.
Bainbridge 1 B Fleet freshman sailors Kendall Sanson and Katherine Linrothe had the best performance record on the BHS team for the day with finishes including three firsts and a second in the 15 boat fleet.
Other Bainbridge sailors included Sean Willerford, Chris Walker, Andrew Selzler, Jake Fetterman, and Hannah Bouchillon, all of whom showed great improvement this season.
North Kitsap, newly returned from the Mallory Double-handed National Championship, won the regatta with 46 points as Kingston took second with 55. Port Townsend 3 finished third with 67 points and Central Kitsap 1 was fourth with 70.
– With information supplied by BHS sailing coach Susan Kaesler
