January-February 2022

February is short. Which is good. In a blink, it will be March. The thing about February is that there are only four of each day. Only four Mondays, only four Saturdays, and only four Sundays. I think that is good because while iceboating is wicked cool and fun, and frostbite racing is wicked cold and pretty fun, and skiing or snowboarding is fun (but has gotten really popular and therefore crowded thus less actual skiing and…

In May 2022, all eyes in the Optimist sailing world will turn to Long Island Sound as Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club in Oyster Bay, NY hosts the 2022 United States Optimist Dinghy Association Team Trials Regatta. “The regatta name is derived from the fact that the results are used to determine who is chosen for teams representing the U.S. in top international championship regattas in the following year – think Olympic trials for Optis!” said Event Chair…

Our friends at The Women’s Sailing Foundation (WSF) are offering the Sue Corl Youth Sailing Scholarship in 2022 to young women 14-19 years old who want to broaden their sailing experiences and need financial assistance to do so. The scholarship was established in 2015 in memory of Sue Corl of Marblehead, MA, a board member and a tireless advocate for WSF programs. The young women identify the opportunity of their choosing. Opportunities may include, but are not…

Our friends at Clean Ocean Access (COA), a Middletown, RI-based non-profit organization with the vision of a clean, healthy ocean that is accessible to all, have appointed Pamela Cook as their new Executive Director. With a long history in the non-profit world of education, Pam has over twenty years of advancement, enrollment, and communications experience in private schools in Massachusetts. She, her husband and their four children have greatly enjoyed all the natural resources of Aquidneck Island…

Wanted: Onboard Environmentalists for the Newport Bermuda Race By Chan Reis, Green Team leader, Bermuda Race Organizing Committee Most of us know what a watch captain, navigator, cook and tactician does on the Newport Bermuda Race, but what about an environmentalist? We are excited to announce that the SailGate crew management tool now allows skippers to name an “environmentalist” on their crew roster. This small software change in the entry management system is both symbolic and substantive. Ten years ago, the Newport Bermuda Race Organizing…

Editor’s note: Our friend Bruce Kirby, a man who arguably did more to advance the growth and popularity of sailing than anyone else, crossed the bar on July 19, 2021 at age 92. A longtime resident of Rowayton, CT, Bruce had been working on his memoir with his friend Mark Smith of nearby Norwalk for two and a half years before his passing. “Our collaboration was challenging and spirited,” says Mark. “It’s been a long road and…

Driving Interest & Success in Junior Big Boat Sailing, Part 2 Story & photos by Rick Bannerot Some sailors are born into it. Others wander in by accident, and then there are those who moved up from dinghies to the world of “big boat” sailing. The November/December 2021 edition of WindCheck recounted many notable junior big boat victories that generated headlines around the sailing world, including Young American winning the Vineyard Race in 2013, High Noon winning…

Most sports require a certain amount of thinking ahead. If you’re racing a Formula 1 car, for example, you wouldn’t want to come out of a curve and wonder which way the track will turn next. When you’re skiing a slalom race, you always need to know where the next few gates are so you can set up properly for each turn. The same is true with sailing. The more you are able to anticipate the future,…

Five Years of the Unified Water Study By Peter Linderoth, Director of Water Quality, Save the Sound The completion of the 2021 Unified Water Study season marks the fifth anniversary of this Long Island Sound-wide water quality monitoring program and the collaboration continues to grow! Launched by Save the Sound in 2017, the Unified Water Study (UWS) is a groundbreaking water quality monitoring program developed so groups around the Sound can collect comparable data on the environmental…

By Paige Myatt, Program Manager, Sailors for the Sea powered by Oceana From July 30 to August 6, 2021, the Cleveland Yachting Club in Rocky River, OH hosted the Thistle Nationals 75th Anniversary Regatta and earned Platinum Level Clean Regattas certification. They hosted 96 boats, fed and entertained approximately 400 sailors and guests each night, and had a team of approximately 100 volunteers working enthusiastically to make this a world-class regatta.   John Yingling and Marylin Hunger…