Sailing team competes in SAISA South Points #1 regatta
During the September 29-30 weekend, the Admiral Farragut Academy Sailing team traveled to Hollywood, Florida for their first regatta of the season, the SAISA South Points # 1. Due to the red tide, the waterfront has been closed, making it difficult for the team to get on the water and prepare. Despite this challenge, the team including juniors Rex Walrond and Emmett Serentez, freshmen Osvaldo DeLeona and Alex Erwin, and their coach Rebecca Hofmeister headed to the other coast to compete.
At a high school sailing event, the school is split up into two teams called “fleets”; A fleet and B fleet. During the course of a regatta, the two fleets are never on the water at the same time. A fleet heads out first and sails one to two races, then B fleet heads out to do the same. At the end of the day, the fleets are scored together and the team with the lowest score is the winner.
In a regatta dominated by Olympic contenders and sailors who have been in boats their entire life, a regatta like this can be daunting, and our team got out there with no practice and did their best. At the beginning of the day, they started out strong, with our A fleet consistently finishing in the top 20, placing 13 in the second race. In their third race, our A fleet had a bad turn of events finishing on course side (OCS) meaning they were over the starting line too early, which results in last place plus one point. Yet, they turned it around and ended on a high note with a 7th place finish in their last race ending the day 20th overall and 3 points out of 19th place.
B fleet did great as well, announcing to their coach that they were going to go out, have fun, and do their best since they hadn’t been able to practice since early this summer. Every race they got better and better working their way up the ranks. After adding the scores of A fleet and B fleet together, the Farragut Sailing team ended up in 22nd place out of 24 teams.
All and all, it was a great day on the water for the Farragut Sailing team. Hopefully, the waterfront will open again soon so they can get out and practice.