U.S. Junior Women's Doublehanded Championship
by US Sailing 26 Jul 2019 05:41 NZST
19-24 July 2019
Katharine Doble (back) and Zoey Ziskind (front) - U.S. Junior Women's Doublehanded Championship 2019 © Cynthia Sinclair
The two events competing at the 2019 U.S. Junior Women's Doublehanded Championship, hosted by San Diego Yacht Club, came down to an exciting finale on Wednesday afternoon.
The racing was exceptionally tight in the Club 420 fleet for the Ida Lewis Trophy. The team of Katharine Doble (Pacific Palisades, Calif.) and Zoey Ziskind (Goleta, Calif.) had a tie-breaker edge for the lead entering Wednesday's final three races over Jessica Smith (Palmetto, Fla.) and Laurel Tyson (Key Largo, Fla.). They held on for the victory to win the Ida Lewis Trophy by one point.
"Our starts were very good and our downwinds were fast," said Doble. "We had good wind pretty much throughout the weekend. The upwind strategy was a major part of the regatta because of the course configuration, which our coaches talked to us about and worked with us on like keeping more in the center of the course especially when the marks are skewed to the right side. We made a lot of gains in the downwind too for the most part. Good speed all around."
"The clinic was a great experience because we haven't been in many big boat fleets yet. Learning the starts with more boats in the 420 was very helpful for us. The coaches gave very good advice and it was interesting working with them each day. We gained a lot of knowledge from them."
"We had really fun dinners. We got to know some people we had already known better and made new friends with people we hadn't known yet."
Svenja Leonard (Carpinteria, Fla.) and Adra Ivancich (Manhattan Beach, Calif.) earned the first-ever 29er event at the U.S. Junior Women's Doublehanded Championship. Placing second and seven points behind the winners was Alice Schmid (San Diego, Calif.) and Samantha Gardner (San Diego, Calif.).
Ivancich was excited about the win and opportunity to sail. "This is our first Ida Lewis. We haven't sailed in light wind together before, but it ended up working. We mostly played it safe, especially on the upwinds, and didn't take too many risks once we established our position."
"The clinics were really helpful and the coaches did a great job. We mostly worked on boat speed and we've been trying to work on communication or a while, so it was good to be more in sync."
The wind dropped to from eight to five knots after Race 2 today in the 29er fleet signaling the end of the Championship just 1:30 pm PST.