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JSA of LIS Awards Special Trophies for 2011

Annually the JSA of LIS awards several trophies that focus on character and dedication to sailing, outstanding junior sailing instruction, and season-long sportsmanship.

The special trophies for 2011 were presented by Pam Toner, JSA Chair, during the Midwinter Meeting at the Beach Point Club in Mamaroneck NY on February 11.

BROOKE E. GONZALEZ MEMORIAL TROPHY
- The Brooke E. Gonzalez Memorial Trophy is awarded to a girl who demonstrates exceptional character, dedication to the sport of sailing and outstanding sailing achievement among her female peers.  Brooke Gonzalez was admired for her enthusiasm for sailing, beginning with Optimists, through Blue Jays, Lasers and finally Intl 420s. These attributes led her to be Commodore of the Junior American Yacht Club and a leading force of the Intl 420 Class US Team. Her bright smile and obvious excitement for sail racing was seen by many people at clubs all over the Sound. Brooke’s friends collaborated to create this trophy to keep her memory alive.

The 2011 Gonzalez Trophy has been awarded to Rebecca Quirke, of American Yacht Club. Becca was nominated by leaders of her junior sailing program because they felt the recipient of this prestigious award should be a young woman who embodies the Corinthian spirit on which our sport was founded. Having been a multi-year junior sailing instructor and Junior American Yacht Club Commodore, she is a role model of ethical and sportsmanlike behavior for younger sailors. Additionally, Becca embraces the overall goal of creating life-long sailors through the excitement and the long-lasting friendships of the junior sailing program. She is an extraordinary young woman who embodies integrity, morality, compassion and friendship.

We also congratulate Bridget Clarke, who was nominated for the Gonzalez award by Pequot Yacht Club.

 

SUSIE TROTMAN TROPHY
- The Susie Trotman Trophy for outstanding sailing instruction is awarded to an instructor who exhibits ethical behavior by both personal example and instruction.  He or she also must show a high level of administrative competence, good communicative skills with parents and sailors, creative teaching techniques, responsibility and reliability, initiative, good judgment and leadership, dedication and motivation as well, as have working relationships with peers. Susie Trotman’s contribution to training sailors spans over-30 years, including serving as chair of the junior sailing program at Cold Spring Harbor Beach Club, chair of the US Sailing Association national training committee, organizer of the Oyster Bay Sailing Foundation Advanced Racing Clinics, spearhead for the development of US Sailing instructor training courses, and US Sailing regional training coordinator in the Long Island Sound area.

Carter Harris accepts the Susie Trotman trophy on behalf of Juan Pablo Carranza

The 2011 Trotman Trophy has been awarded to Juan Pablo Carranza, of Indian Harbor Yacht Club. He was nominated by his junior sailing program because of his ability to encourage and challenge his junior sailors and his ability to communicate with them in a very effective way. He shows a genuine interest in the young sailors, from top finishers to the back of the fleet, demonstrating the integrity and character of a true role model to the sailors whom he directs daily. Always excited to go for a sail, he is the first to motivate the younger kids who may be slightly apprehensive on a windy day, or lead the racers around a new style of course. His initiative was demonstrated after a micro-burst hit the club on a weekend, and he took charge to direct the recovery and repair of the entire C420 fleet within three days. Further, he rescued one of his sailors from a capsized boat when she was trapped beneath the hull unable to escape. Juan Pablo’s unrelenting willpower, initiative and great personality make him a great friend, coach, and instructor.

We also congratulate Emily Stubbs, who was nominated for the Trotman award by Stamford Yacht Club; Meredith Krim, nominated by Douglaston Yacht Squadron; and Graham Landy, nominated by American Yacht Club.

MITCHELL S. WEEKS MEMORIAL TROPHY
-The Mitchell S. Weeks Memorial Trophy is presented by the JSA of LIS and the New York Yacht Club to sailors who show outstanding sportsmanship. Mitchell Weeks was a very active member of New York Yacht Club before his death from leukemia.  Mitch's sailing career began at age six in dinghies. At age eight, he was sailing a Blue Jay single-handed. As a young man, he was in great demand as fore-deck crew aboard racing and cruising boats. He was Junior Commodore of Indian Harbor Yacht Club, and a Sailing Instructor at the Junior American Yacht Club.  At St. Paul's School he won the Tolland Medal awarded for "Outstanding Sportsmanship, Dedication, Integrity, and Courage." The purpose of the Weeks trophy is to underscore for generations of young sailors to come that the true benefits of sport come from the integrity, courage, and fairness with which the game is played. Four awards may be made annually, one each in the C420 (a skipper and a crew, individually), Laser and Laser Radial classes.

The 2011 Weeks trophy has been awarded to two sailors.

The Laser class award went to Wilson Hunt, of American Yacht Club, who was cited as the keystone of his junior sailing program. He sails because he truly loves the sport and works hard to make sure his competitors and friends enjoy themselves. Wilson wants to learn and also have fun on the water, and he makes sure that everyone, including his coaches, is getting something out of the experience - he has always seen the bigger picture of what junior sailing truly is about. Always a great role model, his friends love him, his competitors respect him, the coaches value his contributions and the younger sailors look up to him. 

The Radial class award went to Glenn Blair, of Pequot Yacht Club,

who has helped to rebuild the Laser/Radial group at his club. He consistently demonstrates a competitive but sensitive attitude and is respectful of his peers, instructors and of his competitors. He always looks for advice on how to improve, tries out new strategies in the boat, and wants to understand how a race turned out the way it did. He then takes this knowledge and applies it the next morning during junior mentoring, where he shows true proclivity for teaching and a genuine desire to help others learn. He repeatedly exhibits a desire to push himself and his peers further in increasingly competitive regattas.

We also congratulate Thomas McHugh, who was nominated for the Weeks award by Black Rock Yacht Club.

 

Long Island Sound family and friends sailing in the Sydney Hobart Race

Hey, all you fans of junior big boat sailing in the USA, here is the yacht from Long Island Sound to follow in the Sydney to Hobart Race that starts December 26:
- Designed in 1969 by McCurdy & Rhodes for Richard Nye of Indian Harbor YC, Greenwich Conn.
- Won the 1970 and 1982 Newport Bermuda races.
- Won the St. David's Lighthouse division in the 2010 Newport Bermuda Race
- Took second in her division in the 2011 Transatlantic Race
- Won her division in the 2011 Fastnet Race
- Now sailing for the first time in the Sydney Hobart Race

The yacht is Carina, from Westbrook CT, owned by Rives Potts.

She is being campaigned in 2011 by an epic crew of Potts' family and friends. The crew includes Potts' son Walker and nephew Rives Sutherland, plus Rich duMoulin and his sons Ed and Mark duMoulin.

What's the connection with junior big boat sailing?

According to Potts, “When my boys got to 12 or 13 I wanted to sail with them, so I bought Carina.” He believes that sharing the offshore experience can add hugely to the bond between father and son. “Our normal scheme is to have several fathers crewing Carina with their sons,” he says. “Standing watch with your son at night, it brings you closer.” The Sydney Hobart Race has featured the Carina family spirit in this news article.

And Rich duMoulin commented that a main commandment aboard Carina has been, "You cannot talk back to your own father." duMoulin is well known to the 4,000 juniors and their sailing instructors who have attended the Storm Trysail Foundation's Junior Safety at Sea Seminars at Larchmont YC. During the past 15 years, he has coordinated the volunteers from the Storm Trysail Club who have been providing this important training. 

Follow the action in Australia beginning with the live 90 minute webcast of the Sydney Hobart race (starts on December 25 in the USA 6 PM PST/9 PM EST)  and at the official Sydney Hobart Race website.

Notes:
- Read a background story about Carina and Rives Potts in the The Australian.
- See details about the yacht.
- After the 2010 Newport Bermuda Race, Potts told a reporter from Soundings, "Carina is a good seakindly boat, she's not extreme one way or the other. She's very sturdy and is a heavy boat by today's standards. She's not as good around the buoys, she's not that quick and nimble. But she's very nice on the ocean going in a straight line, she likes a straight line. I kind of have a love affair with her."
- And Rich duMoulin wrote two reports for Larchmont Yacht Club and Storm Trysail Club about Carina's 2011 Transatlantic and Fastnet racing.

 

Teen sailors in Sydney to Hobart race

Eighty eight yachts are due to start in this year's race on December 26, and once again the super-maxi Wild Oats XI is likely to take line honors.

Wild Oats is sure to have a rival in the public interest stakes. Celebrated teenage sailor Jessica Watson, in her pink Sydney 38 Ella Bache (Another Challenge) will surely be shadowed by the media aircraft.

Watson will skipper the youngest crew to ever compete in the Sydney Hobart. After conquering some of the most treacherous oceans to become the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, she will skipper a crew of 10, all of whom will be 21 or younger - making them the youngest crew ever to compete in the famous race, with an average age of just 19. Among the young crew is Mike Perham from the UK, another solo circumnavigator.

"The most surprising thing about meeting Watson is her size. She is extremely petite; not much over 150cm tall (5 ft) and about 50 kilograms (110 lbs) dripping wet."

An eight minute radio interview with Jessica Watson was recently broadcast on the BBC Outlook program. Jessica's item starts at 18:10 in this audio link.

The "Team Another Challenge" Facebook page has latest updates.

Sources:
- Live 90 minute webcast of the Sydney Hobart race starts on December 25 in the USA (6 PM PST/9 PM EST)
- Sail-World Australia
- The Australian
- Official Race site  with details about Watson's yacht  
- Photo by Mark Evans, The Daily Telegraph

 

Long Island Sound area sailors qualify for 2012 Olympics

At the ISAF Sailing World Championships in Australia, all the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics sailors have qualified the USA for a country berth in their respective Olympic classes.

Those of us who sail on Long Island Sound and nearby waters are especially pleased to see some of our neighbors who were junior sailors from about ten years ago punch their tickets this weekend to the Olympic games in 2012.
 
Having a wildly successful final day was Rob Crane (Darien CT) with first and a second for 14th overall in the Laser fleet, a huge leap from 33rd at the start of the day. “It’s unbelievable,” said Crane. “I’m thrilled to have a day like that in arguably the hardest fleet in the world." Way back in 2000, Rob was the JSA of LIS Radial class champion and also the JSA season high-point champ. And earlier this past summer he came back to help some of the current juniors as a coach at the JSA Advanced Racing Clinic.   

Erik Storck (Huntington NY) with Trevor Moore ended up 9th overall in the 49er fleet after a frustrating gear failure in the medal race. As a junior, Erik skippered to win the US Junior Sailing Doublehanded Championship for the Bemis trophy in 2002 and the US Youth Sailing Championship in 2004. More recently he has helped coach the high school teams that sail out of The Waterfront Center in Oyster Bay NY.  

Other top scoring sailors from the Long Island Sound area included Amanda Clark (Shelter Island NY) and Sarah Lihan who were 12th in the Women’s 470, and Debbie Capozzi (Bayport NY) on Anna Tunnicliffe’s Team Maclaren, with Molly Vandemoer, who won gold in the Women’s Match Race.   

  
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Read the details about all the USA sailors on the USSTAG news feed , on the USSTAG blog and listen to audio interviews with the sailors.

And for overall coverage see the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships website. 

2012 Olympic sailing cities reach out to young people

A  group of UK teenagers are working hard to ensure the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games do not pass by the youngsters in Weymouth and Portland.
 
The Young Ambassadors of Weymouth College have been to the past Olympic sailing site in China and recently to London to gather information on how best to involve the local community in next summer’s sailing competition.

Their visit to London followed a 2010 trip by several Young Ambassadors to Beijing, to find out about the Olympic legacy of the 2008 Games on young people in China, where they were amazed to find out about how many youngsters volunteered. 

They think of inspirational athletes and a major sporting event that will put Weymouth and Portland on the map. 2012 should be all about getting young people to make the most of opportunities at the Olympic Sailing Games.

Read the full article in the Dorset Echo

 

Are you attending the US Sailing National Sailing Programs Symposium?

The US Sailing National Sailing Programs Symposium is scheduled for January 11-14, 2012 in Long Beach, Calif.

The JSA of LIS board has regularly sent representatives to the NSPS and we encourage our member clubs to think about attending as well.

The NSPS is the premier event for sailing education in the United States, bringing together program directors, instructors, volunteers, parents and industry representatives to share and learn best practices with one another about running, maintaining and improving sailing programs. The goal is to have participants come out of the symposium with ideas to apply to their own sailing programs to make them better and help them grow.

JSA of LIS office has summarized the preliminary agenda so you may easily view the topics to find those that interest you.

See all the details about the symposium on the US Sailing NSPS web page.

 

 

Learning To Sail, And Then Some: Young Mariners Use Waterfront As Classroom

Three hundred miles of coastline hug the edge of southern Connecticut, meandering from Captain Harbor in the south towards Fishers Island Sound and Stonington Harbor in the north.

Enabling access to this water is a top priority of the Stamford-based Young Mariners Foundation.

In a state with an increasingly widening achievement gap, non-profit organizations like the Young Mariners Foundation have been dedicating themselves to developing programs to bolster academic and life skills achievement. Young Mariners uses sailing as a platform to engage students.

The foundation, which operates today out of the city-owned Southfield Park, was founded in 1997 as a sailing program for low-income children living in Stamford.

“The idea was to give kids who didn’t have an opportunity to access the waterfront a chance to sail,” said Program Director Peter Gunn.

The program was initially based out of Stamford Yacht Club, but then evolved into a full after school program combining time in the classroom and time on the water.

“We started an after school program to help kids learn to swim, learn about water safety and navigation, get a sense of what a boat’s all about,” said Gunn. “It has morphed into an education program that uses sailing as a hands-on way for experiential learning.”

Young Mariners currently partners with five Stamford public schools and three community centers, working with 20 students at each location. The program has both yearlong and summer components, implementing a curriculum based on Connecticut State science, math, and social studies standards.

Students begin in the year-round program, where activities include learning how to swim, acquiring First Aid and safety training, and studying the ecology of Long Island Sound. They then have the opportunity to continue in the Blue Water Bound, a five-week summer program in July. The program has also served as a model for the Greenwich Young Mariners Foundation, organized last year with a similar vision to make sailing and waterfront learning accessible to young students.

“Kids who went through our after school program can apply and come learn to sail – they spend half a day on the water, half a day in the classroom focusing on math, science, and social studies,” said Gunn, who is a retired schoolteacher.

The program instructs in a variety of boats, all of which are acquired through donations.

“Kids learn in Optis, and then graduate to Pixels and Lasers. They learn about racing and they do intramural racing amongst themselves,” said Development Director Priscilla Young.

The learning process is one that will resound with anyone who has ever learned to sail.

“By starting with Optis – in a boat by themselves – they’ve really got to figure things out. They have to absorb information in the morning and then do it in the afternoon. It’s a very powerful process,” said Gunn.

The sailing instruction in and of itself is a key innovation of the program.  Young Mariners employs certified teachers from Connecticut public schools as sailing and content instructors. Many had little sailing experience prior to working with the program, but quickly progressed through working with Gunn and then taking the US Sailing Level 1 Certification course.

“Who our instructors are is really what makes our program extremely unique. These people are very experienced and capable teachers and know how to reach kids who sometimes struggle with learning,” said Young.

“We felt that it is as important to have someone who knows how to reach children with learning as it was to have somebody who knows how to sail.”

Six of the seven instructors are teachers in the Stamford school system and, as a result, are already familiar with students. Young says this helps in building relationships and confidence within the program.

Students who stick with the program over time are armed with skill sets that can serve them in a variety of settings. Some become interns and junior instructors with the Young Mariners, while others take their skills elsewhere.

Gunn says that there are a couple of students who compete on the high school sailing team, an agglomeration of Stamford schools practicing out of Stamford Yacht Club, and that several more are considering joining in the fall.

“There are a lot of options: kids can join Sea Cadets or Sea Scouts, and can go get future jobs at yacht clubs, community centers, at the beach as a lifeguard, et cetera,” said Gunn.

“And when they apply for college, because they have worked with us for five or six years and have taken a lot of certification, they become very appealing to schools,” he added.

Both Young and Gunn agree that the program has been very effective in a holistic way.

“These kids start to do much better in school and gain a lot of confidence. Going out on a boat and managing that process gives you a sense of mastery through problem solving and taking care of stuff,” said Gunn.

“In a sense, these kids are learning to learn,” he said. 

Photos courtesy of Peter Gunn and The Young Mariners Foundation