Thank you so much for your generosity and the support of my trip to Stonington, Connecticut, where we competed in my first event of the summer: the C420 New Englands Championship. We finished 9th out of 62 boats, gaining lots of experience, learning a ton, and meeting new people.

Instead of flying out to the east coast, my mom, dad, and I all spent about a week driving from Newport Beach, CA, all the way to Stonington, CT. We had one practice the day before the regatta, and even though it was drifter conditions, it was still good to stretch my legs out after the long drive and get back in sync with my brother, Nathan. After some quick laps to perfect our boat handling and make sure everything on the boat worked, we headed back to the hotel to get some rest before the regatta.

This summer is off to a great start. It’s only the beginning of July, and I have already spent a lot of time sailing in many high-level events all around the country.

It all began with High School Fleet Race Nationals, the Mallory, in Cleveland at the Foundry. My Mater Dei High School team has been practicing all year for this event. High school sailing is a little different than regular regattas because it combines the scores of two skippers competing in separate divisions.  My crew Kennedy Leehealey and I competed in the A division and my teammate Reade Decker competed in the B division.

I have just returned from sailing on the East Coast, thanks in part to your generous support. Having the opportunity to participate in the Brooke Gonzalez Advanced Racing Clinic at Sail Newport set me up for success for this summer.

My partner, Tyler Wood, and I enjoyed two days of technical training with new coaches. We reviewed our setting and techniques with their new input and approach. Day three we raced against the 30 boats in the clinic. Placing 7th overall we felt that we improved from the coaching and competition. This was great training ground for our future events on the East Coast this summer.

I participated in my first ever match racing event as part of the Petersen Team representing Balboa Yacht Club. This experience has established a new found interest and passion for Match Racing. The Rose Cup combine two days of clinic training with three days of racing to provide a comprehensive match racing experience.

Thank you for your support of my sailing at the Brooke E. Gonzalez Clinic at Sail Newport. This was a tremendous three days of training. I benefited greatly from the exposure to new coaches and their approach to C420 sailing. The first two days we were divided into training groups to work on speed and boat handling. The third day we participated in a modified regatta. Fighting through tough starts, we placed 6th overall in the series of races

Thank you so much for supporting my opportunity to sail in the 2021 US Sailing Youth Match Racing Championship. It was such an incredible opportunity to be sailing against some of the best match racers in our Country. I knew nothing about match racing going into this event, so I was able to learn a lot! 

Before the event, our whole team was only able to train together for two days. Our team consisted of Jeffrey Petersen, Reade Decker, Max Brennan and myself. I thought this would have been a handicap because of the lack of boat handling practice, but it turned out that we all worked really well together. On the first day, we were all pretty shocked by how well we were doing, so it built our confidence as a team. It was incredible to see how fast we all learned our positions.