The Boothbay Region Sailing Club Scholastic Team went to Orr's Island, Maine Sunday, Sept. 4 to race high school teams from Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine. Eleven boats started after a nearly two hour postponement waiting for the wind to fill in from the south. Frank Pizzo, head coach of the Bowdoin Sailing team with assistance from Bowdoin sailors, got the races started about noon.

Racing around a windward-leeward course with windward offset marks and a leeward gate, Boothbay got off to a good start with a 4th and a 3rd place with Ella Beauregard, an 8th grade student at Center for Teaching and Learning, and Hamilton Barclay, a 6th grade student at Boothbay Region Elementary, were the youngest boat. Gabby Boord, a sophomore at Boothbay Region High School, and Nate Rideout (8th grade), also of Boothbay, then posted a 7th and an 8th. It was the first time both pairs of sailors had raced together and it was the first time they raced in the college Flying Junior (FJ).

Racing was held at the Bowdoin Sailing Center in 4-8 knots of wind with current changing during the racing causing pileups at the starting line and weather marks.  

In Race 5, Beauregard and Barclay drifted too close to the pin at the start and had to pinwheel behind the starboard tackers while heading for the committee boat on port crossing the line last, they battled back on each leg to finish 9th. Their final race fared a little better with a boat tacking from port to starboard too close at the start for the pair to heel to leeward and accelerate into clear air. They battled back from last to finish 8th in race 6.

Nate Graves, an 11th grader at Boothbay Region High School, substituted in as crew as the breeze picked up and looked to build even further. Boord and Graves were unable to keep clear at the start of race 7 of a boat that tacked close to leeward and touched gunwhales. The pair did their 720 after the start finishing 10th. In their final race the wind slowed to 4-5 knots and took 11th.

The team finished 8th of 11. This week the full squad practices in the waters of Boothbay Harbor Monday-Thursday. The next regatta for the team in the Bulldog Regatta held at SailMaine in Portland on Sept.10. The team has regattas scheduled every weekend through October and will be hosting an event in the inaugural Pen-Bay League on Oct. 1. Practices and racing is easily viewed from McKown Point.