Notes from High Noon, Bermuda Race Youth team

By Carina Becker, Windcheck Magazine
On June 21, 2016 seven members of the Young American Junior Big Boat Sailing Team were among the very first finishers of the 50th running of the Newport Bermuda Race. Sailing High Noon, a Tripp 41 on loan from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Sailing Foundation, these remarkable sailors (ages 15 to 18) won their class in the St. David’s Lighthouse Division and were the first recipients of the new Stephens Brothers Youth Division Trophy. Team member Carina Becker looks back…

In my first year in the American Yacht Club Junior Big Boat program, I could remember my dad, Peter Becker, and the older team members daydreaming about sailing in the 2014 Newport Bermuda Race, which was happening the following year. At that point I was still figuring out my way around our newly named J/105, Young American, and beginning to learn the basics and some tricks here and there. For most of us, the Bermuda Race was just a dream.

When I was little I would shadow my dad when he completed his inspections, just to see the boats that would be competing in the Bermuda Race. When the start date rolled around, I made sure I was there on the water, watching the boats cross the line. Watching boats sailing into the distance made me wonder what it would be like to be isolated from land.

I was curious about what it would feel like to wake up the following morning and be in an ocean, so far from land that you can only depend on yourself and the people around you. I felt a pull. I held a desire that made me want to seek out those boats. I hoped to follow them out into the Gulf Stream and experience the open ocean for myself.

I could say that is where my thirst for ocean sailing started, but I think it was actually when I got out there for real. About a week later, my dad, my brother Key Becker, Will McKeige and I got on a plane and flew down to Bermuda. We stayed one night and then headed out to help deliver Maximizer, a Swan 72, back to Newport. I learned so much about ocean sailing during that delivery, and my eagerness to race to Bermuda grew.

Read On.