In December, we competed at the 4th annual Carlos Aguilar Match Race Regatta in St. Thomas, USVI. We sailed in IC-24’s with a crew of five. Joining us for the regatta was Janel Zarkowsky and Benny Allen. The format was different this year than in years past. This year there was only an open division. There were thirteen open teams competing. After the round robin we were seeded second, with a record of 10-2.
In the quarterfinals we sailed against Stratis Andreadis from Greece. We won the first race and were leading the second until the final downwind where we spilt. From there he was able to win the race. We then won the next two races and the series sending us to the semi finals to race Taylor Canfield.
The semi finals were first to three points, and were sailed in very puffy and shifty conditions. It was a back and forth series. We would win a race then he would win a race. Taylor was able to tie the series at 2-2 and force a race 5. We stuck to our conservative plan and were able to win the series.
In the finals we faced Staffan Lindberg from Finland. We controlled him in the first three pre-starts, getting a few penalties on him. We won the first race but that was the only race we won. We lost the series 3-1. We were bummed about how the finals turned out but were happy with our overall performance. We would really like to thank Janel and Benny for sailing with us.
After the Carlos, we headed to Miami for some Elliot training. For the first week we trained against Keith Swinton from Australia. He was great and we had an awesome week of training. The next week we held a mini regatta with four teams. The other teams were Steph Roble, Taylor Canfield, and Keith Swinton. We had a four-day regatta. We did a triple round robin and then a semi finals and finals. We had a lot of racing. We finished 1st out of the round robin and raced Keith in a first to four points series in the semis. The series wasn’t decided until the final race and we won the series 4-3. In the finals we were matched up against Taylor Canfield in a first to two points series. The first race was close, with Taylor edging us out at the end. We won the second and the third race winning the finals.
We would like to thank Bill Canfield for running the races, Mike and Peter for umpiring, Charles for observing and videoing, Steph, Taylor, Keith and their teams for training with us and competing in our mini regatta. Last but not least, we want to thank our coach Dave Perry for making the event work and being able to balance coaching, umpiring, moving marks, and everything else we threw at him. Thank you!
