On September 28th and 29th, the Corinthian Yacht Club, Seattle Sailing Club and the J/80 fleet will host the NW District’s Keelboat Qualifier.
There is a recognized need to connect young sailors with keelboats and those currently sailing keelboats in order to strengthen the sailing community. The Northwest Interscholastic Sailing Association (NWISA) has long hoped for this partnership and started talking to the J/80 fleet at JFest.
There are approximately 50 High School teams that compete under NWISA, typically on double handed dinghies. Teams that have keelboat racing experience will fill out a resume in the hope of being selected as one of the seven teams to participate in the Keelboat qualifier.
Teams will be asked to attend a Clubhouse discussion Friday night with owners/team. An on-the water 2 hour session with the owner/team will take place Saturday morning. The teams will rotate through all of the J/80s transferring via coach boat. The team that scores the lowest points after completion of the round-robin will travel to Florida in December and compete in Interscholastic Sailing Association’s Keelboat invitational at St. Petersburg Yacht Club, where the top ten teams across the country will sail on J/70s.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.