Junior Sailors Take to the Seas at the 88th Larchmont Junior Opti Day
“This is my first regatta!” I overheard a junior sailor telling someone excitedly. As the sun peaked over the clubhouse, 195 junior Opti sailors descended on the Larchmont Yacht Club last Thursday, July 17th for the 2014 Opti Day Regatta.
Many young Opti sailors were happy to find out that when they registered at the sign-in table, the racing instructions they were given came with candy. Looking back, this may be why the sailors were very hyper that day.
At the skippers meeting, the race committee really managed to play up the ‘fun’ aspect of the regatta, getting the Opti kids involved in the meeting by having them blast the horn and wave a flag, among other things. A delay of about 30 minutes didn’t deter the sailors, who were out running around or playing boxball before the harbor start.
Out on the water, conditions weren’t that great. A light breeze allowed for the race committee to get two races in for the day. “The first race they got some really great wind,” Horseshoe Harbor Yacht Club coach Jack Cooney told me. “by the second race though the wind had died. And I think everybody knew that we were done for the day.”
While conditions were not optimal, sailors still said they had fun. “We were still moving!” a group of HHYC sailors told me happily.
After coming back in and de-rigging their boats, sailors came back in greeted by food and ice cream, a staple of after-regatta festivities at Larchmont Yacht Club.
At the end of the day, Harrison Roth of American Yacht Club placed first in the red fleet. Elizabeth Kaplan of Larchmont Yacht Club placed first in the Black division of the Blue Fleet, with another LYC sailor, Charles Roseberry, placing first in the Green division of the Blue fleet.
In the White Fleet, Ben Sheppard from Riverside Yacht Club placed first in the Yellow division, and Ben Schinto, a fellow RYC sailor, placed first in the Blue Division.
Full race results are available on the JSA Website.
