On October 26 and 27, Cal Sailing made the 45 minute drive down to Redwood City to compete at the Top 9 Invitational and Women’s PCCs hosted by Stanford. The format of this regatta was different from most college sailing regattas. Only the top 9 teams in the Pacific Conference were invited to come. Suffice to say, this regatta felt more serious than most. On Saturday, the Top 9 fleet sailed FJs while the Women’s fleet sailed 420s, switching on Sunday, with Stanford providing all boats and sails. The alternate boat was a good time. The poor Stanford coach driving the boat was forced to listen to all our crazy stories, jokes, and shenanigans. I want to give a shoutout to Mady and Wilton, who never got a chance to sail but made being alternate on the coach boat an amusing experience. Also since John’s brother is a member of the USC team, there was a conflict over which team would get to stay at their house for Fall PCCs in Santa Barbara. Naturally, we settled this by betting on whose women’s team would do better.

Conditions varied drastically over both days. Overall, this was a tiring regatta because of the nonstop, intense racing and the difficulty of racing against the best teams on the West Coast. 

Our women’s team consisted of Katherine Olsen and Aliyah sailing in A fleet, where they finished in the top five (out of eighteen boats) in ten of the sixteen races. B division consisted of Vicky and Annika, with Bianca swapping in for Vicky for the last few races on Sunday. Vicky and Annika sailed consistently well, and Bianca caught a huge right shift off the start in race fifteen, leading to a stunning second-place finish. Thus, our women’s team killed it given the competition, finishing fourth place out of nine. They had a comfortable lead over USC, meaning we won the bet and will get the house for Santa Barbara!‭ 

‭ Our Top 9 team consisted of Will and Carsten skippering in A, with Emerson as the main crew and John‬‭ swapping in for a bit. Nate and Ethan sailed in B. I (Carsten) personally struggled at this regatta. Overall, Will,‬‭ Emerson, John, and I gave it our all and had some good races. Nate and Ethan encountered similar problems,‬‭ but they had many good results throughout the weekend, including a third and two fifths. Our Top 9 team‬‭ finished with a hard-fought seventh out of nine.‬

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