35968 Scow Fall Winter - Inland Lake Yachting Association

FALL/WINTER 2006 SCOW SLANTS PAGE 55
I never imagined that sailing Opti’s would help me to
qualify for the Laser Worlds in JeJu, South Korea. I
was proud to represent the USA as one of 5
Americans who qualified
for worlds.
I found out that there
were only three
teenagers that competed
at the Laser Worlds. I
grew up sailing Opti’s
and crewing on an X
Boat on Lake
Minnetonka and
around the Inland. I
soon got my own X-
boat and grew out of
the Opti. I started to
learn about Laser
Sailing though my High
School sailing team. Eric Oppen; my mentor and
Coach as an Opti sailor loaned me his Laser while he
was sailing in College. I have been sailing Laser’s
seriously for the last two years. I sailed at a National
level for the last year and that is how I qualified for
Laser Worlds.
When I received the phone call that invited me to sail
in the worlds I was coaching my home lakes Opti
team at the Inland Opti Championships. I was very
excited and was unsure of what to think. I trained as
much as I could before hand in order to try to prepare
myself for what I was about to face. September
came all too soon and that meant one thing—school
was starting. I went to the first day of classes then
hopped on a plane to Jeju Island, South Korea.
While training before the event with Bradley Funk and
Andrew Campbell we had some time to visit the island and
see some interesting things. We visited a
very old Buddhist Temple built
into the rocks, The Stadium
where the World Cup Soccer
had been played and attempted
to go shopping.
The First day of
qualifying the winds were
light as we were heading
out to the race course.
Then all of the sudden
you could see this line of
wind come down and all
of the sudden it was 25
knots with 6-10 foot
waves. We didn’t sail a
race under 15 knots with
8 to sometimes 12 foot waves. Being 6’3 and
weighing 165 did not help me when I was going up
against men who were my size plus 30 pounds
heavier. The weather was challenging and I
experienced my first Typhoon. The sailing was fun
and super challenging.
Looking back at it I learned a lot and had a lot of fun.
I knew my results wouldn’t be anything unreal
because of the conditions but I sailed the best I could.
I made many new friends from different countries
and of course like all kids learning a new language,
picked up a few bad words in other languages. All in
all this Inland sailor had a really good time and I
hope to keep sailing well and qualifying for future
Laser Worlds.
submitted by Robin Dale
The LOP’N was held at Pewaukee Yacht Club last
Thursday, June 15th. Warm weather and light winds
lead to four great races in the Junior and Senior
fleets. There were forty-one sailors that took part in
the racing with great judging lead by Russ Ackley
and PJ Friend.
Nicholas Clemence (PYC), for the second year in a
row, won the senior fleet. He was followed closely
by Spencer Jones (PYC) in second, Parker Trepton
(LYC) third, PJ Feichtmeier (PYC) fourth and Augie
Dale (PYC) rounding out the top five.
Wills Duchow (PYC) had an impressive four race
winning streak to be crowned junior champion. Hot
on his trail were Trevor Trepton (LYC) in second,
Tommy Calvy (PYC) in third, Tom Groskopf
(OLYC) fourth and Scott Sazama (OLYC) in fifth.