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Thank you so much for your financial support, which helped me attend the 2017 Orange Bowl International Youth Regatta held at Coral Reef Yacht Club in Miami, Florida. Sadly due to some unforeseen circumstances, my skipper Jean Marie Wanlass, who I had trained with for months, was unable to attend. Fortunately, Jeffrey Petersen was able to join me as my skipper.
We were able to quickly make up lost time. On our first day, we prepared our boat and started practicing for racing.The next day was the first day of racing. The first two days of racing were qualifiers for silver and gold. The 80 boats attending the event were split into two fleets. After two days for racing and six races, the top 40 made up the gold fleet and the bottom 40 boats made up the silver fleet. For the next two days, we raced in the silver fleet. We were very happy with our performance in the qualifiers since we had only sailed together three times by the end of them. On our first race in silver, we finished in third but sadly got U flagged at the start but we were still very proud. We used that excitement into the next race placing sixth. Sadly during that race, I was hit in the head and we were not able to compete in the last race of the day. On the last day for racing, we had a decent first race, but due to my injury the previous day, we were again not able to race in the last race of the regatta. We finished in 56th place overall in the regatta.
Even with all the crazy events that occurred during the regatta, we learned so much and both hope to return another year with more planning beforehand. We were able to experience different conditions than California offers which opened many new challenges and new opportunities to learn. I am so happy that I was able to to have the opportunity to experience and learn everything that I did at the event. I'm very thankful to NHSF for helping me have this opportunity. Thank you again!