JSA Race Week Hosted by Cedar Point Described as Intense, Breezy

Cedar Point's Melanie Gedney and Seawanhaka's Edward Lebens sail to the starting line before the first race Tuesday morning.

Nearly 150 Laser and C420 sailors came to picturesque Cedar Point Yacht Club July 23-24 for the regatta described by competitor Glenn Blair as “what sailing should be like.”

For many—indeed almost half—of competitors, the regatta may as well have been only on Tuesday, as no races were completed on Monday in the Laser Radial division because of dead wind in the morning.  And even the C420s and Laser Standards only managed to finish 1 race before returning to shore early, around 2pm, on account of looming storms.

Despite this initial setback, the wind came on in full force Tuesday morning and stayed pretty consistent throughout the day.  As expected, the Race Committee took full advantage of this, initiating the first starting sequence at 9:30am (with no postponements—quite a feat for JSA regattas!) and running 6 races for Lasers and Radials, 5 for C420s.

“The amount of wind Tuesday was nice; it really tests the sailors’ skills,” Andrew McCarthy, a C420 crew from Pequot Yacht Club, explained after the races.

“There was a ton of breeze,” said Will Crane, a C420 sailor from Noroton Yacht Club and cousin of Olympic sailor Rob Crane.  “A lot of people couldn’t handle the amount of wind and lots of them capsized.”

Laser Radial sailor Sophia Gould derigs her cunningham Tuesday afternoon after 6 intense races earlier that day.

Because of the overwhelming amount of wind, a number of sailors became very worn out, especially the Laser Standard sailors, and dropped out early on Tuesday.

“The regatta is also a test of stamina, and how much you want to compete,” commented Blair, who was sailing a Laser Standard in the regatta and finished 3rd in his division.  “Especially in the last few races.”

Cedar Point is famous for hosting a very intense, yet well organized regatta every year, something one might expect from a club “all about sailing,” as American Yacht Club’s Aisling Quirke put it.

“It was a very intense regatta, I really liked when the wind picked up,” recounted Quirke Tuesday afternoon.  “And the Race Committee was great too; they were very good at communicating with us.”

Pequot sailor Glenn Blair cheerfully removes batons from his Laser Standard sail Tuesday afternoon.

The regatta is usually good every year,” Chris Wands, a Laser and C420 coach from the New York Athletic Club, said after the awards ceremony.  “And really, the best thing was to see the kids enjoying themselves”.

The team of Jared Gaynes and Alexandra DelBello from American took home 1st place for the C420 division.  In Laser Standards, Peter Duncan, also from American, won 1st and Cedar Point’s Richie Gordon took home 1st for Radials.  Full results for all divisions are on the regatta documents section of the JSA’s website (JsaLis.org).

Pictures from this event are in an album on our Facebook page here.  There is also an album with photos from the awards ceremony here.  Keep in mind that you can download any of these photos to your computer directly from Facebook, and then you can upload them to Snapfish or something similar and get prints, calendars, mugs, etc. made to add a personal, nautical touch to any room in your home or office.