Barger speaks at Celebrate Sailing Dinner

by Talbot Wilson on 5 Jul 2009 Ben Barger, USA Olympic RS:X board sailor and six-time US National Champion, was on hand today to give the young sailors personal insights on international and Olympic competition. Barger is currently the 24th ranked RS:X board sailor in the world and the top ranked American.

Barger spent the morning at the Optimist Dinghy Green fleet clinics with the youngest sailors in the regatta. He worked with Nicole Buechler, at one time the 6th ranked female Laser sailor in the USA, who is currently the Opti coach at Clearwater Community Sailing Center in Clearwater, Florida. She instructed the Laser and Optimist Dinghy sailors.

Barger, the featured speaker at the SUBWAY® Celebrate Sailing USA Junior Olympic Sailing Festival kick-off dinner Friday night, began sailing with his family at an early age. As a young man, Ben fell in love with the speed of boardsailing, thirty miles per hour plus.

He began competing more than fifteen years ago in local regattas, then moved into in regional regattas including two Junior Olympic Sailing Festivals. He won the USA Junior Olympics in 1997 and 1998 which qualified him for the Youth Worlds in Japan and South Africa.

Ben, a six-time US boardsailing champion, is undefeated by an American since the 2003 National Olympic trials and has been on the medal podium at twice in Europe in 2007 and 2008.

In the US Olympic qualifying finals for the 2008 Olympics he defeated a four-time Olympian who had won had already won a bronze and a silver Olympic medal.

Clinics were also presented Friday afternoon by Karl Kleinschrodt, well-known sailing coach from Mobile, for the Flying Scot group.

Racing takes the spotlight on Saturday and Sunday with competition in nine racing classes: Opti Green, Red, White, and Blue fleets; Laser Full, Radial & 4.7 fleets; and Flying Scots.

By Friday afternoon there were a record seventy-nine young sailors registered to participate in the festival. Prizes, including the new SUBWAY Celebrate Sailing perpetual trophy awarded for the top performance in the largest fleet, will be awarded Sunday afternoon.

The SUBWAY® Junior Sailing Clinic, Ben Barger and Celebrate Sailing dinner program and the 8th annual USA Junior Olympic Sailing Festival on the Gulf Coast are presented for the first time this year by the locally owned Northwest Florida and Southwest Alabama SUBWAY® franchisees. Pensacola Yacht Club in Pensacola, Florida hosts the annual festival and regatta on July 3-5th.
Sailors 8-21 years old were invited to bring their Optis, Lasers, Club 420’s and Flying Scots to join the fun at this traditional 4TH of July holiday regatta.

PYC web site, http://www.pensacolayachtclub.org