West River SC High Performance Try It Out Clinic

West River Sailing Club and the Multihull Committee of US Sailing joined together to run a “Try It Out” Clinic for selected 420 race teams on Wed July 29th, 2015. The goal of a US Sailing Try it out Clinic is to introduce top ranked racing juniors to the world of High Performance boats: F16 catamarans, 29ner skiffs, Formula boards and International 420s. The West River SC clinic used four F16 catamarans borrowed from members of West River SC Catamaran Racing Fleet (WRCRA). Katie Flood, a member of the US Sailings Olympic Development Team was our head coach and led a team of 5 WRSC members. Twelve members of Annapolis Yacht Club’s 420 Race team got a chance to learn the basics of wire to wire tacking, spin hoisting and recovery and capsize recovery on the beach before hitting the water in a building breeze of 6 to 11 knots. The F16s were sailing in the bay off of West River reaching speeds of 16 knots in a few runs. The sailors were really excited and impressed with the speed and power of the boats. They figured out that you can’t muscle high performance boats, that the main sheeting system is exactly opposite to 420s and that the acceleration can toss you backwards on these boats. The 4 girls in the program couldn’t believe the possibilities for helming or crewing. Katie Flood, Joeclyn Henderson Fan and Colin Pitts helped the sailors climb a steep learning curve. WRCRA invited the junior sailors interested in adding F16 Cat sailing to their 420 experiences to participate in their Tuesday evening racing. For more info: Mark Schneider (mschneid@msn.com) or Richard Feeney US Sailing Development Director (Richard.feeny@gmail.com)



Tacking wire to wire without wiggling the rudders