Also once again photographer, Roy Govshovitz of 42Degrees has taken some great shots, including the photo above, Skins: Seth Cooley, Chris Kennedy, Chris Poole, Shirts: Abby Freeman, Morgan Keating

In my last update to Oakcliff a little over a month ago I'd just had my first training session with the American Youth Sailing Force on the AC45.  Following that  I had one week to finish school, pack  and move  to San Francisco. The past month has flown by.

While no day is average a typical day goes something like this. Wake up at 7 and the team meets in the office before breakfast which generally consists of a pile of eggs and beans.  Afterwards is a team meeting and some time to do office work followed by our morning gym session.  Lunch and a protein shake have to be consumed immediately after the workout to insure recovery before the afternoon sailing session or another couple hours in the gym. Somewhere in there we also find time to review sailing footage, raise money, and volunteer to sail with at-risk youth from the bay area.

After a month of grueling workouts and training sessions on our practice boat an SL33 catamaran I was excited to get back on the AC45.  We launched the boat Friday afternoon and the forecast looked great for the weekend.  Saturdays session started off light and while still a bit fluky it quickly built into the upper teens. Despite having been out of the boat for a month we quickly settled in. After just one long lap we shortened the upwind leg to under 5 minutes.  At that length the pros won't drop their genoas on the upwind because it's more efficient for the crew to just leave it up.   We were taking it down every time to challenge ourselves.

We sailed even better on Sunday but the wind built early and the practice was cut short by a couple hours.  We walked away from the training weekend feeling very comfortable on the boat and as a team.  Unfortunately this was our last 45 practice session until we take delivery of our own boat on August 12th.  Until then we'll continue training in the gym and on San Francisco Bay in a variety of skiffs and catamarans. The team is also still raising much needed funds.  Please follow us and support us on our webpage www.americanyouthsailingforce.com and if you are in the bay area come out to one of our fundraisers.

Madeline Gill of the Oakcliff Travel Team 212 Degrees Racing along with current Sapling, Sarah Ragel, graduate Ivy Binns, supporter Ann Schwagerl and ringer Liz Hjorth are in Chicago to race for the US Sailing Women's Match Racing Championship. Hopefully they can conquer the windy city!



photo:https://www.facebook.com/degrees42

The Farr 40 Kids team and Temptation Oakcliff are  racing this weekend in Newport, Rhode Island.  They will be racing the NYYC Annual Regatta. On top of that Sapling Hobie Ponting is headed to Michigan to pack up the Farr 47 and truck it back so we have a second boat in the Halifax race.   Andrew Wills is coming back to coach Hobie as this boat's project manager.

What this all means is I'll practically be all by myself at Oakcliff this weekend so feel free to come by and sail in the Alzheimer's regatta on Saturday and say hello to your Dads for me on Sunday.