Mike Powell is putting a lot of energy into sailing these days, from hanging on a 505 wire to racing offshore on leadbottoms and campaigning his own J/33. He’s also giving back to the sport running the youth program at Bellingham Yacht club. Finally, he’s an enormously skilled professional sports photographer (shooting 13 Olympic Games is on his resume’…). –KH
101 Youth Sailors, 76 racing dinghies in 6 different classes, 50 races completed, 6 support and RC boats, multiple coaches and ribs on water and a team of dedicated volunteers feeding everyone morning, noon and night. That’s what the Bellingham Yacht Club did Aug 11-12 for its annual Youth Regatta which is part of the North West Youth Racing Circuit and the best attended so far. It takes a lot of work starting months before the event takes place and doesn’t finish until the last pizza crumb is cleaned up and the results, stories and photos are posted. Thank you one an all for your efforts, rather than making a long list of names I’ll leave it there, you know who you are and your work is appreciated.
Click here to see the rest of Mike’s great photos. Click on any of these to enlarge.
The weekend gave us everything from high teens and big seas to calm and light but we always had race-able wind, the RC kept the starts moving and no one complained about there not being enough races. Watching over the fleet as rescue/photo and general boat about town gave me the best seat in the house to see how dedicated these youth racers are to the sport.Everyone on the water from the brand new to racing green fleeters to the 29er Skiff sailors put everything they had into their racing and it showed in fierce competition, big end of the day stories and joyful smiles, it was a pleasure to watch.
Results can be found here: https://www.regattatoolbox.com/results?eventID=TCpekqntlM