Big turnout at NHYC’s Anteater Regatta

NEWPORT BEACH — The UC Irvine Sailing Team sponsored the High School Anteater Regatta hosted at Newport Harbor Yacht Club this past weekend.

Twenty-eight California high school teams participated in the Gold Fleet along with 28 teams in the Silver Fleet. It was the largest turnout for a high school regatta in recent history, with about 300 sailors.

It was too bad the wind didn’t turn up. The event took place in the calm before the storm that arrived Monday.

With almost no wind on Saturday, the race committee was able to get off only three sets of races for Gold and three for Silver all day. On Sunday the winds were slightly higher at about 4 knots, and so three more sets of races were pulled off in the afternoon.

Even though it was sailed in Newport Harbor, the San Diego teams dominated the regatta. Point Loma placed first and third; Cathedral Catholic, second; and Francis Parker, fourth.

The best representatives from the Newport Bay were the sailors from the Corona del Mar High School team: Michael Madigan, Chloe Dapp, Conner Kelter and Caitlyn Johnson, who placed fifth in Gold.

And the Newport Harbor High School team— Lea Russell, Megan Roach, Wills Johnson, Katie Calder, Kristina Miller and Davis Hanscom — placed first in Silver.

CdM had four teams and Harbor had three in the challenging Gold Fleet. After CdM’s fifth place showing, Pt. Loma placed sixth and Coronado seventh.

The three gold teams from Harbor placed eighth, ninth and 10th and the other gold teams from CdM placed 17th, 20th and 22nd.

The other local high schools that sail in Newport Harbor, Mater Dei and Sage, also had one team in the Gold division placing 19th and 28th, respectively. Mater Dei also had 2 teams in the Silver Division.

There were teams that arrived from up and down the state, including two from San Francisco, three from Santa Barbara and numerous teams from the many harbors in the Los Angeles and Long Beach areas.

The next Pacific Coast Interscholastic High School Sailing Regatta will be the Rose Bowl Regatta, sponsored by the USC sailing team at the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club on Jan. 7-8.

This regatta will also feature college sailors from all over the country. Some of the teams coming so far are Stanford, Georgetown, St. Mary’s, Roger Williams, Santa Clara, UCSB and Charleston among others. This is the only West Coast Regatta where high school and college sailors sail on the same course.