On Saturday, July 29th, I had the unbelievable experience of sailing in the Regatta for Lake Champlain as part of the Community Sailing Center Youth team, a group of level 3 campers.
The boat we raced was Mashnee, captained by Jan Rozendaal and crewed by Sam Darling. She is a Buzzards Bay 30, and in my 26 years living on or near the ocean, she is truly one of the most beautiful boats I have ever seen and definitely the most beautiful I’ve ever sailed.
After leaving the dock, Sam showed Mashnee’s new crew how to change jibs (depending on the wind), how to hoist the main; the race started and we were crossing the line. The first leg was a straight shot on port the whole way, which made for a leisurely lunchtime cruise. Around the mark we headed up and began our beat up wind. This leg provided much more excitement as campers went flying, and sometimes rolling across the deck to avoid the very low boom. As we approached the final, most windward mark, we began to see how close we were to the front of the pack, and team’s excitement grew. We were happy to be sailing well and thrilled to be preparing to set the spinnaker.
Around the final mark our ‘light air’ spinnaker, the largest Sail the campers and I have ever had the pleasure of flying, was set. To our delight and amazement we slowly started gaining on and finally passed the entire fleet!
The regatta was a truly amazing experience, and I was incredibly grateful to be invited along. I’ve raced since I was ten and have only won a handful of regattas; I’ve coached sailing for five years and only seen my kids win three or four; this is the first time I’ve ever had the pleasure of being on the same boat as the kids when we crossed the line first. It was incredible.
I want to say thank you to Jan and Sam, as well as, everybody on the CSC team and their parents for supporting us.
-Nick
