On July 25th, I traveled to Mission Bay Yacht Club for the 2024 CFJ Nationals. I sailed with my crew, Lucy McCray, and this was our first national CFJ regatta. That day, we unloaded our boats at MBYC and had a team practice before the races started the next day. From July 26th to 28th, we raced with wind from 8-10 knots, with minor shifts throughout the race days. There were 35 boats in the fleet. The most challenging part of this regatta were the starts. Over multiple days, I slowly improved and eventually was able to get a fair lane. Making sure to have a good hole, fast accelerations, and staying out of the big packs on the line were my biggest takeaways. Overall, I hope to continue training in this boat and get to learn and improve as much as I can. I have only been sailing this boat a short while, and while we did not finish as well as we hoped, this opportunity has been a great learning experience for me to see many amazing sailors! I appreciate the Newport Harbor Sailing Foundation's support for helping fund my growth as a non-calm sailor.

This past summer my younger brother, Porter, and I had the amazing opportunity to compete in Junior Sabot Nationals, which was hosted by San Diego Yacht Club. This was my 4th Sabot Nationals, and my brother’s 2nd. This year was so much fun, not only sailing, but also meeting new friends and hanging out with old ones. The conditions were absolutely amazing. Overall, I placed 18th in the Gold Division, and my brother placed 21st in the Silver Division. Overall, this has been a great year of sailing for my brother and I – we have both improved greatly and look forward to he upcoming year that awaits us. As always, this is made possible by your support, and we greatly appreciate it.

While competing in the Bacardi Cup this March in Miami, I formed many relationships with the international competition. One of them was a fellow under-30 Star sailor from Austria. We kept in touch, and he invited me to sail to the European Sailing Festival hosted by the Union Yacht Club Attersee on Lake Attersee in Austria. The festival consisted of a memorial regatta, a district championship, and the Star European Championships. We were generously given a boat by the Under 30 Star Sailing Foundation in Austria called “Future Stars” for the month-long adventure.

This summer Claire Frazier was in her first travel Sabot Nationals at 9 years old. She was very excited and she is also quite competitive. She did several practice days with the NHYC team throughout the year at SDYC to learn how to battle the breeze. She qualified for bronze this year and had some great finishes. She was second in one of the last races when rounding the mark. She swamped her boat and had trouble keeping it upright. She fought the water in her boat by hiking out as hard as she could. Every tack took all her strength until she finally went over. She has the drive to improve and is really looking forward to her next regatta. She had so much fun learning from her coaches and playing with her friends in the hotel pool.

Maddie was excited but nervous when she was asked by her coaches to skipper at CFJ Nationals. It was not part of the original plan for the summer as she had been focusing on Sabot Nationals, her had only been doing CFJs for less than a year, and most of that time was as a crew member. However, her coaches at NHYC felt she should get the experience and fellow (high school) sailors reiterated how she should get as much CFJ experience before she begins high school.

This year’s US Women’s Match Race Championships, held in Chicago, showed not only the range of Lake Michigan’s conditions, but the depth of the current women’s match racing fleet. Over three days of varying conditions, 10 teams comprised of 4 sailors fought for the Allegra Knapp Mertz Trophy.