Registration Open for Junior Olympics

Pensacola, FL (May 11, 2018) – Pensacola Yacht Club’s Fleet Captain, Hal Smith, has announced the dates and format for the annual 2018 USA Junior Olympic Sailing Festival, the JO’s. Clinics and event check-in and late registration will be on June 29th. Racing for Lasers, Club 420’s and Optimists is scheduled for June 30th and July 1st.

Pensacola Yacht Club (PYC) has made the JO’s an annual special event for youth sailing for almost two decades. This year will be no exception. Young Optimist Dinghy sailors will use this regatta as a training event for the Optimist Nationals scheduled at PYC July 13-22.

In that week, some 400 sailors, 8-15 years old, will be racing for the top Opti prizes on Pensacola Bay in the four-day overall Optimist National Championship, the Optimist Girls National Championship, and the three-day Optimist Team Racing National Championship.

Opti Red, Blue and White Fleet assignments for the JO’s will be based on the competitor’s age on the first sailing day of the regatta. Older sailors who have ‘aged out’ of the famous eight-foot prams, the largest one design class in the world, may compete solo in Lasers and in the two-person Club 420’s. Both Laser and Club 420 classes are stepping-stones to Olympic competition.

On June 29, race clinics will be held for all sailors in Optis, Lasers and Club 420’s to warm up for the USA Junior Olympics. Seasoned Opti sailors, including those training for the Nationals, will sail on the same official Optimist trapezoid course that will be set for the Nationals July 13-22.

Less experienced and younger Opti skippers will race on a ‘Green Fleet’ course set just for them. Lasers and the 420’s could sail either the trapezoid course or windward-leeward courses. Sailing Instructions issued at check-in will further define which course each class will sail.

Cesar Travado, PYC’s Sailing Director hired in 2017, is stepping right into a very busy time at the club. “I am setting up new training classes and developing sailing school schedules for the spring and summer targeting the JO’s and Optimist Nationals,” Travado said. “PYC will have an active ‘Green Fleet’ of beginners and a team of advanced sailors to enter the JO’s and Opti Nationals. We are going all out to put quality sailors in these regattas.”

Event Details

Source: Talbot Wilson