Mother Nature: Whatever she wants

A lot of consideration goes into the selection of the US Youth Team for the 2026 Youth Sailing World Championships, and Mother Nature took those plans and did what she always does, which is whatever she wants.

The plan was to use the US Youth Championship (Long Beach, CA) for the skiff, kite, doublehanded dinghy, singlehanded dinghy, and windsurfer classes, while the mixed multihull representative would come from the Nacra 15 North American Championship (Sarasota, FL).

And for those events, Hurricane Isaias in the Atlantic and Hurricane Rachel in the Pacific threw the local playbook out the window. Two hurricanes. Opposite coasts. Same time. Go figure, but despite the hurdles, the events were held and selection occurred for the Worlds on December 15-19 in Loulé, Portugal. – Full report