Newport Harbor Sailing Foundation: Sailor Stories

Cassady Lorentzen at the Opti PCCs

Results

Thank you so much for funding me to go to the Pacific Coast Championships at the San Francisco Yacht Club. It was a qualifying race for Opti Team trials that will take place at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club next spring. Although I didn’t qualify, I had so much fun, pushing my limits in the wind and making more friends along the way. On the first day of the regatta we experienced harsh weather conditions, twenty knots with gusts up to twenty five! Me, being a sixty eight pound chicken nugget, I retired for the last race of the day (as did half the fleet!) because it was just too hard to handle. Right before I got to my coach, I was drinking my water and a fish jumped out of the water and scared me; now I’m not scared of fish but it startled me. So there I was, jumping to the other side of my boat. The force was too much for my boat and my foot got caught on the mainsheet,  and I capsized. The first thing I grabbed was my brand new water bottle and then I attempted to un-capsize my boat. Then I got to my coach and retired for the day. Then on the second day of the regatta, the wind started out nice, with only about eight knots I'd say.  After the first race the wind started picking up and the second race was fifteen to twenty knots, but then it picked up to twenty. It was hard because I'm so light, but it was really fun. Then as I was sailing back to my coach, I swamped. And one of the judges had to tow me back to him. The tow to and from the race course was about an hour each way and that presented some of its own interesting challenges, my bow line snapped, and a team mate lost his rudder.  Despite all the things that happened at this regatta, I loved the experience, and I think it was good for me to sail in heavier wind for a change. So again, thank you for funding this all to happen, and I hope you got a laugh out of this, because I sure did!