TEAM VS FLEET

The ILS Sailing Team has a long season that lasts the entire year, culminating at a district qualifier for team racing. The qualifiers for team racing were hosted by the Ransom Everglades School and only two weeks after, the qualifiers for fleet racing were hosted by Carolina Yacht Club. You might be asking yourself, what is the difference between team racing and fleet racing? Well, team racing is a three vs three race. It is sailed on a different course than fleet racing called the digital N. The goal of team racing is to be the team with the lowest combination under 10. It is an intense experience with lots of wild maneuvers and accelerated heart rates.

ILS SAILING PREPARES

Only two teams get to qualify for team race nationals and this year only 4 teams including ILS competed. The team had been practicing at least once a week the entire year. But it’s difficult to properly simulate what a 3 vs 3 team race and all its intricacies look like with only 4 boats and 4 skippers. Nevertheless, ILS did their best. There are four skippers on the ILS Sailing Team: Danny Riano who has been on the team for four years, Keith Gruppenhoff who joined last year as a freshman, Isabella Heinrich who joined the team this year as a freshman, and myself.

THE QUALIFIER

Danny and I along with our coach, Pat Downey tried to get Keith as prepared as possible for this qualifier. The thing is with team racing, you can practice maneuvers all you want, but if you can’t see the full combo it really doesn’t help. It all comes down to experience.

So, the qualifier approaches, we’re all nervous but Keith is especially, and it’s completely natural for him to be nervous as this is his first varsity regatta, and he’s never sailed against these kids before. So Danny Riano and I, as his teammates, we’re trying to reassure him. We’re keep telling him to breathe and relax. And we’re not going to be disappointed in him if we do poorly. We just want him to give his all and we’ll be happy with that.

REGATTA TIME

He said he took away a lot from that regatta especially in how if you keep your head up, you will eventually prevail.

And, let me say, that this was one of our more brutal finishes. We lost all 12 races, but that’s not what hurts the most. What hurts the most is that we were giving it out all. Not once did I think we gave up as a team out there. We made every single team have to fight for their win and that won us their respect.

So even though this season did not finish how we would’ve liked, we took away some crucial lessons and we’re going to come back sailing twice as hard next year.