Organizers of the Newell Sailing Club Prairie Winds Regatta held on July 10th and 11th 2021 were excited to see so many young people registered—a good sign for sailing in Alberta to see all those youth out on the water. Calgary Yacht Club at Chestermere sent 10 Optimist sailors (aged 8 to 15 years), six teens sailing the three 29er two person skiffs, one youth sailing an International 2.4mR (an adapted sailing one-person keelboat), three youth sailing single handed Laser 4.7s, two sailing Laser radial, and four more sailing the double handed 420s. In all there were twenty six kids from CYC ranging in age from 7 years to 18 years old. Also in attendance were over ten Youth from the Glenmore Sailing Club in Calgary.
CYC Coaches Brianna Brand and Andrew Baird did an amazing job of organizing the pack up of these boats on three trailers, hauled by volunteer parents and coaches, and of course, spending both days on the water making sure the kids were safe during the races. A enthusiastic cheering section of parents onshore and on the water added to the excitement of the weekend—and their help onshore was invaluable to get the boats in and out of the water. Saturday turned out to have a perfect wind, 11 Knots (~ 20 Km) with sunshine but Sunday posed a challenge for the youngsters with gusts up to 18 Knots ( ~36 Km). The racing was called early on Sunday as the wind speed increased.
Results from CYC were; Opti 1st Claire Wooldridge, 2nd Sienna Bruchet, 3rd Zairyn Mierau. Laser 4.7 1st Randy Ren, 2nd Graham Xu, 420 double handed, 1st Samuel Kingdon and Aryan Virk, 2nd Neda Ljaljevic and Eve Shepherd. 29er Skiff, (tied for first with Glenmore Sailing Club), Nicholas Dixon And Chaz Peddlesden; 2nd Rhys Peddlesden and Joeseph Kingdon, 3rd Anna Kearns and Charlise Bruchet. And in the 2.4 mR 1st Avery Sandblom
Also noted were winners for the adults; Laser Radial Steve Reichenfeld 1st and Lesley Reichenfeld 2nd and Peter Wilson 3rd. In full rig Lasers 1st Issac Bussin, 2nd Mike Hooper.
CYC sailors are looking forward to the next regatta, this time at home at CYC the “Open for Summer Regatta” on August 6,7,8th 2021. Anyone interested in being part of this amazing community club please get in touch with Manager Laurie Dunn manager@cyc.ab.ca
