ILH sailors make history with inaugural regatta

By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer

The waters off Magic Island late yesterday afternoon resembled a summer weekend on San Francisco Bay, with small white sailboats zipping back and forth across a picturesque backdrop.

B

The first Interscholastic League of Honolulu sailing competition got under way yesterday off Magic Island. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Mid-Pacific was second with 56 points, followed by Maryknoll (60), Iolani (85), Sacred Hearts (93), Waldorf (142), Lutheran (144) and Academy of the Pacific (145).

Each school had two divisions of sailors (A and B divisions), and each division had a skipper and a crew.

Kamehameha also is entered in the league but did not participate yesterday.

Although the sport is the newest in the ILH, many of the participants are veterans who have competed in the Hawai'i Youth Sailing Association or the Hawai'i Youth Racing Association. Some schools, like Punahou, had teams that competed informally in the past.

"But we've never really been recognized before, and this is a lot more organized," Buffanblu sophomore Quinn Franzen said. "I thought only the hard-core sailing people would come out, but there's a lot of others who are doing it and it's still pretty equal, because a new person can be placed with a skipper who has experience."

Franzen said the HYSA regattas would have "maybe eight boats max," but there were 16 racing out near Ala Moana Bowls yesterday.

"There's definitely a boom already," Franzen said.

The participants included several girls, highlighted by four sailors from Sacred Hearts.

Some of the girls, like Mid-Pacific's Whitney Dolman, also are veteran sailors.

"I've done it for two years, but it's nice to represent the school, especially MPI because we're smaller," Dolman said. "For example, I came over from paddling where we're used to being in fourth place. But today we took second. For us to be able to compete against Punahou and Iolani ... it's nice."

Dolman said the inaugural ILH season should be exciting, partly because of fairness rules forcing teams to use different boats every regatta.

"It worked out well," Dolman said. "Most of the skippers have experience, but there was a lot of new crew, too, so in each race you don't know what's going to happen."

The only sure thing is each sailor now officially is an ILH athlete.

"It's nice to finally be recognized," Franzen said.

Correction: Scott Melander is the junior sailing director for Hawai'i Yacht Club. Another club affiliation was mentioned in a story posted yesterday.