By Peter Joslin
This past weekend I went to St. Petersburg, Florida for the annual Optimist Dinghy Exchange. We had a clinic on Friday to prepare for the Valentine’s Day Regatta, which was held on Saturday and Sunday. We had a fun weekend of sailing all lined up.
Our trip started on Thursday with a nice long flight connecting through Denver, Colorado which as fun for me because we got to see fresh snow which I hadn’t seen in a long time. We got to Tampa and met one of the host families. They took us directly to St. Petersburg Yacht Club. When we got there we met the other host families, had dinner with all the kids and went back to their houses where I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I was so tired.
When I woke up on Friday, I had breakfast and went straight to the yacht club way earlier than I was used to. When we got there the Junior Director, Corey helped us figure out which sails were ours. Then we rigged and went to our meeting. In the meeting we learned which drills we were doing and then headed out sailing. It was still only about 9:30 in the morning (6:30 San Diego time). We got out on the water and it was blowing about 15-18 knots. The wind was supposed to die throughout the day so we got right to drills. We did some drills right inside their little basin and then headed out into the big bay to practice in the waves. We did more drills such as the cone drill and rabbit starts and then started some scored racing. We did 4 races and I got a 6 because I did the course wrong twice. Once I figured out the correct course I got a 2, 1, 2. which was the best score line of all the people in the clinic.
On Saturday it was game time. There were about 180 boats lined up to race in the Gold fleet but it was split up into fleets. I was in the green flight. We got out there and it was blowing about 6-8 knots. They got starts going and the first flight (which I was not in) had 10 general recalls! Finally, our flight was up. After lots of black flags, the wind went dead for about 45 minutes and then we finally got racing going at around 1:00. We completed two races for each flight then went in. I got a 22nd and a 27th in an 80 boat flight to put me in 43rd out of about 180 boats.
On Sunday we launched at 7:45a..m. only to go out and find the conditions were too extreme with 25-30 knots of breeze and huge waves. After a delay, the race committee felt that the wind had died down (I don’t think it did) and we went back out for one more crazy race.
I ended up in 80th at the end of the regatta. I wish I had done better but that’s all right. I had lots of fun and I wish I could do it again. The exchange was a great experience for me to sail in a new venue, experience challenging conditions and race with such a large fleet on the line. This exchange will be one of my most fun and favorite experiences.
Thank you to St. Petersburg Yacht Club, San Diego Yacht Club, the Competition Fund and our host families for making this experience possible.