The Publisher
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May 5, 2010, 1:27 PM
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Island domination in college sailing
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ISLAND DOMINATION
The second most important college sailing competition of the year was held last weekend when 36 schools were selected for two semifinal rounds to qualify for the ICSA/Gill Coed National Championship: the Eastern Semifinals in Charleston, South Carolina and the Western Semifinals in Seattle, Washington.
When the weekend was completed, with the top nine schools from each Semifinal round advancing for the Nationals in Madison, Wisconsin on May 25-June 3, there was one statistic that seemed unavoidable. Among the winning A and B division skippers in each Semifinal event, three of these four skippers grew up as youth sailors amid the neighboring islands of the United States.
The only winning skipper from the continental U.S. was Tyler Sinks (A Division, Eastern), who hails from the hallowed ground of San Diego, CA. As for the others, Bermudian Jesse Kirkland (B Division, Western) and U.S. Virgin Islands Cy Thompson (A Division, Western) and Taylor Canfield (B Division, Eastern) dominated the field. And lets not forget another islander - Thomas Barrows (USVI) - that finished second to Thompson.
Providing a little insight into what is occurring in the Caribbean is Lyn Reid, Past Commodore and Bill Newbold, Commodore of St. Thomas Yacht Club:
It is not often a small yacht club in the Caribbean gets to blow their own horn but I believe it is now time for St. Thomas Yacht Club to stand up and do just that.
So far this year Max Nickbarg, a member of St. Thomas Yacht Club (STYC), has already won the High School Singlehanded National Championship, and the Antilles School team - all members of STYC - ran through the Southern Regionals in both team racing and fleet racing and are one of the favorites to win both these National Championships in the next few weekends. A few years ago Antilles School, in just their third year of sailing with STYC members, accomplished this double championship victory and is on track to possibly do it again.
Taylor, Thomas, and Cy have been banging against each other on the race course together for over 15 years and they have remained fast friends through the victories and defeats. I attribute this to our strong junior program at STYC that places emphasis on fun rather than having too much structure. We have never really had a full time coach employed at the club. Amazingly enough there is another strong group of young sailors coming up that will move into high school over the next few years to keep our sailing tradition in tact
Thanks for allowing St. Thomas Yacht Club (Home of the International Rolex Regatta, Carlos Aguilar Match Race and Scotiabank International Optimist Regatta) a few seconds to sound off. Please help us root for the "islanders" in the upcoming weeks. Who knows, they might be buying you your first "pain killer' on your next visit to the Caribbean.
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