AUTUMN SAILING AT DHS
FCIAC Championship Team Holds Fall Club
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The Darien High School Sailing team is coming off an FCIAC Championship and second place in the state season. Now the pressure is on this fall to keep up the winning record.
While the team actually competes in the spring rather than in the fall, the fall crew still works hard. “The fall season is basically just to get us ready for the spring,” senior sailing team member Katherine Newkirk said.
The fall team meets three times a week at the Noroton Yacht Club to take part in fleet racing. This event consists of individual boats, each with two persons manning the vessel. “We use ‘420’s’ for our boats,” senior captain Mackenzie Milne said.
While the fall consists of fleet racing, the spring involves team racing, coached by Karl Zeigler. In team racing, there are three winning combos: 1 st, 2 nd, and 3 rd place, 1st 4 th and 5 th place, and 2 nd, 3 rd, and 4 th place. In order to achieve these places, the boats must communicate with each other in order to align themselves with the other boats in the race.
“Physics is involved,” Milne said. “You have to use physics of the wind to affect the other boats.”
One particular maneuver is a “pass back.” One boat slows down another in order to move a teammate into position for a winning combo.
The 15 members of the sailing team have high hopes for the 2009 season. “We want to beat our archrival Greenwich, who won second in FCIAC,” Milne said. In order to have a successful season, junior Willem Sandberg and sophomore Olivia Crane will have to step up.
The fall team competes in regattas, particularly against other sailing clubs such as the Mamaroneck High School Sailing Club in Westchester County, New York. The team hopes to expand to make fall sailing a team sport at the high school.
The sailing team is a friendly environment. “We’re a tight team,” Newkirk said. “A lot of bonding takes place here.”
