This past weekend Mac Agnese, Catie Hopkins, Jack Swikart, Pati Andrade, Joe Farned and myself competed in the Admiral Moore Team Race at SUNY Maritime. We set out from Penn on Friday night excited for the team races ahead and after staying at the Swikart’s house, we set out for New York early the next morning eager and ready for a chance to practice team racing at a fun and windy intersectional.

We got fun and we definitely got windy — the breeze built up to 10-22 knots in the afternoon. Still, the races got off smoothly and the SUNY race committee was able to pull off an impressive 61 races total by 5:40 pm on Saturday. Each team sailed 14 races and we managed to pull out several wins and finished the day feeling good about our efforts. It was a long day, but we ended in high spirits, if a bit damp and cold.

The next morning we spryly bounded from bed in anticipation for the excitement in our near-futures. We had only 6 races to complete in the second round robin so we knew we’d be fresh and ready to compete. We finished up by 2 pm and headed back to school feeling accomplished with the improvements we steadily made throughout the whole regatta.

We went into this event focused on taking the chance to get back in the boats and practice a type of race we’ve never had the opportunity to experience as a team — it was exciting.  The differences between our first several races and our last few were profound in terms of our teamwork and strategy; we made great strides throughout the weekend. We’re looking forward to the next several weeks of team race practice in anticipation for the Prosser Trophy in Annapolis over the first weekend in April!

It was additionally great to welcome our coach Johnny Norfleet to his inaugural regatta with our team! Also thanks to the Swikarts for allowing us to stay over on Friday and Saturday.