The winds blew hot on the water and plentiful in the classroom

by Oakcliff Sailing on 11 Jul 2012 The combination of Dave Perry, Match 40s and Oakcliff Sailing’s completely unique training and coaching was too good to miss as a sold out crowd of fifty two young sailors showed up to learn and to match race.

Sailors ages 15 to 24 traveled from California, Florida, the US Virgin Islands, Illinois and Canada to join local sailors for four days of intense coaching from Perry, the current national match racing champion and Board member at Oakcliff.

In the end of the day it was the team from Newport Harbor Yacht Club (CA) who was victorious, but all participants went away winners. Many attendees were college sailors looking towards the 2012 ICSA collegiate national match racing championship and others were match racing for the first time. North U helped sponsor the event.

The training and racing was done in Oakcliff’s Match 40’s, which was exciting for the young sailors, many of whom were sailing on boats that size, and with a wheel, for the first time. 'I was very impressed with the steep learning curve of all the sailors,' said Perry. Our goals were to increase the knowledge each sailor has about sailing and racing a keelboat, learn a ton about match racing, learn how to develop good communication and decision making systems on board a racing sailboat, and have a lot of fun doing it. For sure we succeeded in all four.'

In addition, Oakcliff ‘s trainees (Acorns and Saplings) raced in the event. Acorns and Saplings are summer students and interns learning all aspects of sailing and racing from tactics to boat building and maintenance to navigation to the business side of running a racing boat.

The Acorns and Saplings were ecstatic with the training with comments such as 'Dave Perry blew my mind up with information. The debriefs never stopped and we didn’t want them to stop, well maybe for a snack. I learned so much it was incredible.'

Alongside the clinic, Bruce Cook, chairman of the US Sailing Umpires Committee, led an umpire training clinic, and immediately after those umpires worked the regatta.

Final Results:
Mike Madigan, Newport Beach, CA…4-2
Alex Curtiss, Chicago, IL…4-2
Sam Davidson, Larchmont, NY…4-2
Erik Lawrence, Ft Lauderdale, FL…3-3
Solomon Krevans, Oakcliff…3-3
Tim Clark, Southport, CT…2-4
Seth Cooley, Oakcliff…2-4
Danielle Gallo, Oakcliff…1-5