© 2004 United States Sailing Association

You can read US Sailing's press release here.

Charlie Buckingham of Newport Beach, CA has won the 2006 U.S. Junior Singlehanded Championship in impressive style taking home US Sailing’s Smythe Trophy. Last year’s champion, Cameron Cullman of Rye, NY took second place after a tie breaker with Caleb Paine of San Diego, CA.

You can read US Sailing's press release here.

In the battle for the U.S. Junior Doublehanded Championship for US Sailing's Bemis Trophy, it all came down to the last race as the top two boats were only two points apart. Then, the teams were tied at 15 points. In the tie breaker, Portland Yacht Club’s Alan Palmer (Yarmouth, ME) and Katherine Gullick (Portland, ME) edged out Sam Williams (Summit, NJ) and Margaret Rew (Princeton, NJ) sailing for Bay Head Yacht Club with teammates Molly Lucas (Little Silver, NJ) and Sam’s sister, Charlotte in third.

Palmer, Gullick, Williams and Rew were all smiles at the end and congratulated each other warmly. Palmer laughed, "It is stressful to count points the entire day." And everyone congratulated Lucas and Rew on their win in the final race. Buckingham who had not taken less than third until the final race credited the recent Laser Radial Worlds as good training for this event. "I am stoked!" he said after winning. Next week, Buckingham will also sail in the U.S. Singlehanded Championship for US Sailing’s O'Day trophy.

You can read US Sailing's press release here.

Three young sailors representing Team FOR (Florida Oceanic Racing) from Sarasota, FL have won U.S. Junior Triplehanded Championship by only one point and the Sears Cup, US Sailing's oldest trophy. It was a hard-fought battle for Fred Strammer (Nokomis, FL), Katrina Salk (Miami, FL) and Zeke Horowitz (Sarasota, FL), who were in second place behind Mission Bay Yacht Club, the youngest team at the event, before the final race. This is the second win for Strammer, who first took home the Sears Cup in 2004 racing for Venice Youth Boating Association.

"There were a lot of things that went wrong in a couple of the races, so it was really close on points." Strammer commented. "Both teams had bad starts the last race. We began a tacking duel to put boats between us and Mission Bay." That did the trick and drove the Mission Bay team deep into the pack. The result was Mission Bay finished three boats behind Team FOR. Strammer now joins just six other skippers who have won US Sailing's Sears Cup twice, the last being Ron Rosenberg in 1983 who is one of Strammer's coaches.

You can read US Sailing's press release here.

Sarah Lihan (Fort Lauderdale, FL) is practically breathing a sigh of relief today: after years of practice and racing in numerous regattas, the 17-year-old has finally won the U.S. Junior Women's Singlehanded Championship on her fourth attempt. This year, she clearly dominated the fleet of 56 boats, winning five out of seven races. But her win may not have been as easy as it sounds, as she was up against sailors like Ann Haeger (Lake Forest, IL) and Claire Dennis (Saratoga, CA), who finished second and third respectively and both of whom had competed in the event before.

This is the first junior national championship title for Lihan, the youngest female member of the 2006 US Sailing Team. She has been on the road since the beginning of May competing in events at home and abroad. And she's not quite done yet, she now travels to California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey to compete in the Laser Radial World Championship, which starts this weekend. Hopefully for her she'll be able to take some time off from her travels until she enters Yale University as a freshman this fall.

You can read US Sailing's press release here.

After an impressive and consistent showing, Amanda Johnson (Berwyn, PA) and Ellie O'Brien (Westfield, NJ) won US Sailing's U.S. Junior Women's Doublehanded Championship today. The two young sailors, who sail out of New Jersey, showed up at the National Championship well-prepared, optimistic, and eager. Their experience and positive attitude paid off well: they took the lead on the first day of racing and never gave it up.

The regatta win was by no means easy for Johnson and O'Brien: they defeated 41 other teams, all of whom came into the regatta with impressive sailing resumes. After two days of clinics, led by 2004 Olympian Meg Gaillard, the competitors were ready to get to work. With five races completed on the first day of the Championship, Johnson/O'Brien took a quick lead with finishes of 2-2-3-1-4. The rest of the fleet was immediately at least 17 points behind. And that is how the regatta ended: with 32 points total, the winners finished 17 points ahead of the second place team of Ann Haeger (Lake Forest, IL) and Lindsey Kent (Thiensville, WI). Emily Lambert (Cumberland Foreside, ME) and Liv Gunnarsson (River Vale, NJ) finished third overall with 57 points.

You can read US Sailing's press release here.

I have added information on water depth via links to USGS depth charts to the Racing Area page. It will be no surprise to anyone who has turtled their boat on Geist and had the mast tip come back covered with mud (and usually missing the masthead wind indicator as well!) that Geist is only slightly over 20 feet deep in the main ISC racing area.

I have also slightly reworked the Contact page to include photos of the current ISC officers per the wishes of Commodore Butsch. Hopefully, this will put a more personal face on the website and allow everyone to more quickly identify the officers while at the club (well maybe; they generally don't dress as nicely at the club as they did for the officers photo...)