Hello PYSF Parents, Sailors and Community Members--

The final three races of the North American Championship had the leaderboard shifting a lot!  Capsizes, match racing, flood and ebb tide, breeze building to 20+ knots.  It was FULL ON for all of the sailors!  Congratulations to Cooper Keeves and Matthew Commons from California YC/SoCal, our 2024 Club 420 North American Champions!!

Over the four days of racing, we completed 12 races in Gold Fleet and 10 races in Silver Fleet.  Mornings started with 8-12 knots with the afternoons ending closer to 20 knots.  The majority of the days the kids had an ebb tide, with the flood showing up for the first two races on the final day to add to the challenge.  The top six boats were all in contention to win on the last day and the action was fun to watch!  Some heartbreaking capsizes, some prestart match racing, epic boat handling and boatspeed were all on display.  Congrats to all of the sailors!

Gold Fleet   
1st: Cooper Keeves/Matthew Commons (Cal YC/SoCal 40 pts.)
2nd: Jacob Posner/Cam Spriggs (73 Sailing/SeattleYC 44 pts.)
3rd: Chase Decker/Ryan Hoffman (73 Sailing/LIYC/BCYC 50 pts.)
4th: Glen Foster/Pierpaolo Baldassari (73 Sailing/AYC 55 pts.)
5th: Thomas O'Grady/Emmet Ennico (73 Sailing/NorotonYC 78 pts.)
Top Junior (6th): Harrison Gandy/Reid Packard (73 Sailing 80 pts.)

Silver Fleet   
1st: Lorenzo Puertas/Ava Estiliaei (Encinal YC 147 pts.)
2nd: Reid Sojka/Joby Overton (Encinal YC 169 pts.)
3rd: Ian Adamson/Ava Adamson (HPC/TYC 176 pts.)

106 teams from around the country are competing in the C420 North American Championship, just outside Redwood Creek in South San Francisco Bay.  The fleet is divided into two groups of 53, completing two days of qualifying races followed by two days of championship racing. The fleets are racing on a trapezoid course. Sponsors: Hannig Sail It Forward Foundation, InvestorFlow, Westpoint Harbor, Hurrica Restaurant, San Francisco Peninsula, Somand, NAOS Yachts. REGATTA LINK  PHOTO LINK

Hosting C420 North Americans is a monumental task for a program like PYSF.  There are a LOT of thank you's in order. The neighboring yacht clubs that provided boats, marks, and volunteers (Sequoia YC, San Francisco YC, St. Francis YC, Half Moon Bay YC and Island YC).  The spectator boats were provided by Westpoint Harbor members and friends of PYSF (Diana and Jim on Dee Dee, Shannon and Tod on Grunion, Jeff and Holly on Teak and Holly, Mike and Tammy on Luna, Tina and Russ on Hugo, Kenny and Katherine on Yacht C, Jeff Nielson on Serenite and John Rivlin on Peaches served as our medic boat). Our sponsors (Ted Hannig with Sail It Forward Foundation, Mark Sanders with Westpoint Harbor, Meesun and Parke with Hurrica Restaurant, InvestorFlow, Naos Yachts, San Francisco Peninsula).

A LARGE shout out to the people who made it happen!  Hanna, Will, Siobhan and Esther you are AMAZING!  PYSF is very lucky to have you!  Your ability to roll with whatever comes your way and kill them with kidness is hard to match.  Our on-the-water volunteers blew me away.  Like a well-oiled machine, learning each day and providing top notch race committee work in some extremely challenging conditions.  Our on-land army was a force.  I heard endless compliments on how well you all managed the potential chaos of over 100 boats trying to move in/out of the harbor within a 1-hour timeframe.  And to John, our rockstar PRO for orchestrating the racing.

While I am exhausted after the 9 day event, I am beyond thrilled with how it went.  PYSF truly shined on the national stage and showed everyone what a force this program is.  Good people make good things happen.  I am lucky to be a part of this group.  Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.