| Optimist Sailing Team Competes at North American Championship. |
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| Written by Publisher | |
| Thursday, 10 July 2008 | |
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This is the first time in the history that the BVI Optimist Sailing team, fielded a complete team of 4 in the regatta. The regatta hosted a total of 25 countries, with 204 participants. The event was closed and in order to attend, one must qualify within their country first. Spots are given depending on population size, with BVI given 4.After 2 days of racing, 6 races in total, team BVI’s North American team, and one of the youngest at the event, performed at a very accomplished level. Windy conditions didn’t favor a lot of the smaller, less experience sailors on the first day, but did prepare them well for the remainder of the competition. Senior sailor Dontae Hodge showed that his speed and skill level is world class and put some top half finishes in on day 2. While getting around the 60 min race track proved to be a challenge within its own, BVI sailors would out sail older more experienced Opti racers, to score racer were others could not get around the challenging course, which had 22-25knt breeze, and 3-4 knots of current moving in the same direction of the wind. The final 2 days saw many changes in the scores. While others began to fade on the score board, Team BVI sailors continued to rise. With a total of 15 spots gained on the final day, Team BVI showed that gains were made on a large scale. Highlights include Dontae Hodge scoring his best international score to date, with an impressive 11th place in race number twelve. As well Jonathan, Mollee and Jason, saving their best finishes for the end of the regatta, with many results that had half of the large 204 boat fleet behind them.At the awards ceremony, Jason Putley received an honorary award for being the youngest competitor out of the 204 competitors. The team will continue to train hard over the following year, and while other sailors are aging out of the 15 and under Opti, our sailors still have many more years to race, with as many as 5 more competitive years ahead. Team sponsors, NLP Development of Virgin Gorda and Arifa Trust were thanked for their assistance in making this event a success, and all other companies and individuals too numerous to mention. Results: Out of 204 sailors, and 25 countries Dontae Hodge: 97th Jonathan Woods: 178th Mollee Donovan: 187th Jason Putley: 196th Comments (0)
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The 2008 Optimist North American Championship was held over the week of June 26th through July 5th. The location for the event was the Netherlands Antilles located on the
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