Teams from Rye Country Day and Rye High took on high schools from all over Long Island in the last New York Interscholastic Sailing Association-Southeast Division invitational regatta of the season Saturday, May 10.

 

 

By Mitch Silver

Teams from Rye Country Day and Rye High took on high schools from all over Long Island in the last New York Interscholastic Sailing Association-Southeast Division invitational regatta of the season Saturday, May 10. In the final standings, the Wildcats came in first with 44 points, beating a combined team from Port Washington, Oyster Bay and Huntington high schools with 48. The Garnets finished sixth overall.

Acting Wildcats sailing coach Clemmie Everett described the days leading up to the races. “We sat down at the beginning of last week to talk about what our strengths and weaknesses were as a team and how we could use our limited practice time on the water to improve our overall level of sailing. We finished on a strong note with Cooper Yeager and Hannah van der Vord winning a practice race with 18 boats from our school, Brunswick, Greenwich Academy, and Greenwich High on Friday. The team carried that momentum into Saturday’s regatta.”

Races were sailed in Oyster Bay’s West Harbor in variable breezes ranging up to nine knots, with stronger gusts from the west shifting to the southwest. Six races were completed in Division A and seven in Division B before the boats were called off the water ahead of threatening weather.

Manning the “A” boat were freshman Jack Parkin, sophomore Max Pil, and junior Hannah van der Vord. Senior Allie Conn, soph Hugh Reynolds, and ninth-graders Cooper Yeager and Ruth Reynolds sailed the winning B Division craft. The A’s finished first in one individual race and second in three others. In an even stronger showing, Country Day’s B sailors took first three times and second twice, ending the season on a highly successful note.