Posted By: Andrew ••••••DATE: July 12, 2010

USSC Sheboygan Youth Match Race Camp and Regatta
By Andrew Mason

Late in June the match race team of Peter Kinney, Brooks Clark, and myself travelled to America’s Dairyland to participate in the USSC Sheboygan Youth Match Race Camp and Regatta. We thought this camp would be the perfect place to improve our match racing in preparation for the Governor’s Cup in July.
Dave Perry, the current coach of the USSTAG Women’s Olympic Match Race Team, lead a three-day clinic capped off by a two-day regatta. Dave worked all seven teams hard throughout the five-day event. His meticulous and analytical approach to every aspect of match racing made the clinic an invaluable training experience. The long days reminded me of the CISA Clinic, with report time at 8am every morning and debriefs typically lasted until well after 8pm in the evenings.

During the clinic we had been blessed with good breeze challenging our three-man crew in the Sonar, which can be sailed with four people. However, once the regatta rolled around on Saturday morning, the breeze left Lake Michigan as weather systems made their way through the region. In the first race against King Harbor YC we did a better job staying connected in the puffs off the start and sailed to an easy victory. Our one loss ended up coming against Lake Beulah YC in a drifter race. The wind completely shut off during our dial up allowing the other boat to keep us in a locked position until the start. When a whisper of breeze finally hit us, about thirty seconds after our start, they were able to control us through the line and force us to the unfavored side upwind. This one unfortunate hiccup in a drifter race ended up costing us the regatta because the race committee could not get in a best of three finals due to time constrictions on Sunday. However, we were encouraged that we had lead around every mark in every other race.

We left Wisconsin feeling like we had learned a ton of information that will only help us in the Governor’s Cup this July. Match racing is quickly growing in the US partially thanks to Dave’s hard work and I strongly encourage non-calms and regular members alike to get into this quickly growing discipline. We’d like to thank the Newport Harbor Sailing Foundation for their support.