By Carolyn Smith | NHHS
This past weekend the Newport Harbor Sailing Team participated in the 3rd annual Women’s Invitational Regatta, hosted out of San Diego Bay.
NHHS took a total of 10 sailors and had two teams, Blue and Gray. The team drove down right after school on Friday to participate in a clinic that was coached by John Vandermoer, Stanford’s head coach – a nice way to brush up on fundamentals right before the regatta. After we pulled up our boats that day we got a nice workout from our dear friend Harry Legum, who really got us “pumped.”
On the first day of racing, we couldn’t ask for better wind. It started off roughly at 6 knots but throughout the day built to a max of 9. Both of our Newport teams started their races really strong, and by the end of the day we had both teams in the Top 5.
I would like to make a big shout out to Katie Calder, who jumped in to help out the Mater Dei JV team right their boat after they had turtled. They were really struggling and Katie proved her true Corinthian spirit and really helped them out.
The next day we weren’t so lucky, wind-wise. It was at a max of 3 to 4 knots to start. But by the time we did our rotation and got the A boats out there, the wind had almost completely shut off. The worst part of the whole thing was when the wind died it was during the middle of a race and lucky for the boats that were out there they kept the “race” going. Once everyone finished there was a 30-minute postponement until the breeze filled in enough to get another race off and two rotations.
In the end, the Newport Blue Team consisting of Carolyn Smith, Victoria Lewis, Bayley Davidson, Franchie Cappellini, and Sally Fuller ended up 2nd overall, right behind Francis Parker. The Newport Gray team consisting of Lea Russel, Megan Roach, Katie Calder, Kappy Fuller, and Kristina Miller got 4th overall.
