Bishop Diego HS | Santa Barbara Youth Foundation

Cardinal Sailing Team 2008

Bishop Garcia Diego High School is starting a sailing team! This new sport will allow us to take advantage of living close to the ocean. Sailing is a physical and mental activity. It teaches you strategy, self-reliance, responsibility, teamwork and sportsmanship. It is an action-filled, competitive sport full of people, young and old, doing everything in their power to get ahead of you and beat you across the finish line. Sailboat racing can be aggressive. There are many rules and guidelines that you are required to follow as defined in the US Sailing Rule Book. US Sailing is the organization which was created to encourage and promote yacht racing and to unify various racing classes and rating rules in the United States and Canada. They are the most well-known sailing organization in America.

I want our Bishop Sailing team to be a close-knit sailing team while having fun. We should participate in many regattas, meet new people, and make new friends. This team should have a lot of Cardinal spirit and support so we will be able to walk around showing our school colors with pride. Bishop will be strong and proud, and we will have a good time!

There are over 70 active High School Sailing teams throughout California. Currently, three of these teams reside in Santa Barbara. They are: the Santa Barbara High School Dons, the San Marcos High School Royals, and the Dos Pueblos High School Chargers. We will be the 4th, and the one with the most school support and pride. There are five official high school regattas each year, but many more regattas are held throughout the year for teens that meet the SCYRRA age requirement. Sailing is a year-round recreation, but to accommodate our seasonal sports guidelines, Bishop Garcia Diego High School is classifying sailing as a spring sport. This season was chosen because spring is the time when there are the most regattas (besides summer). During the summer, there is at least one regatta a week. Many of these regattas are held here in Santa Barbara, but the majority of them are in different harbors along the Southern California coast. That means we will be able to sail in many different harbors. For the official high school regattas, Bishop Students will race Club Flying Juniors (CFJ's), which are two person boats actively sailed at the high school and college levels. A High School team consists of two boats. For the other youth regattas, we will only need to have one boat, and these boats may vary depending of the type of regatta being sailed. There are four main boats that are sailed by youths: CFJ's, C420's, Lasers, and 29ers. CFJ's and C420's are fairly standard, two-person boats, Lasers are one-person boats, and 29ers are high performance two-person boats. The boats are provided for us by the Santa Barbara Youth Foundation and you will learn more about them and how to sail them once we get started. If you end up liking sailing, you will most likely sail in all of them.

The organization that organizes our local High School sailing teams is called the Santa Barbara Youth Foundation. This is a non-profit organization branching off of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club. The Santa Barbara Youth Foundation was formed in 1968 by members of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club to meet the need for a youth sailing program in Santa Barbara. It is a convenient place for youth sailors to meet and go sailing. The Santa Barbara Youth Foundation also hosts a Middle School sailing team, which is mainly a preparation for the High School team, and a Summer Sailing program. For more information on the Santa Barbara Youth Foundation, please visit the website www.sbyf.org. For information on Santa Barbara Yacht Club, please visit the website www.sbyc.org.

There is a lot that you are going to need to know before you go out on your first sail. First off, High School sailing practice is on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I would also like to practice on Fridays, since we are a new team. We will practice with the other High School teams. This will give us an opportunity to learn tactics from other Santa Barbara sailors. There will be an orientation sometime in the next week or two to fill you in on everything you need to know on the use of these boats. This first year's fees are already paid for by a sponsor, but there are a few items of apparel that you are going to need. For guys in cold weather, you will want: a wetsuit or a drysuit, and probably booties. In warmer weather, all you will need is: board shorts, and maybe a rash guard or a spray top. For girls in cold weather: spandex and a spray top, a wetsuit, or a drysuit, and probably booties. In warmer weather: a swimsuit and maybe a spray top (most girls wear short board shorts). Everyone will need a lifejacket. You will be able to find most of these items at Play it Again Sports, Murrays, or West Marine. Information on Murrays is at www.murrays.com, and West Marine at www.westmarine.com. The last thing that you will need to do is to fill out a release form for the Santa Barbara Youth Foundation that you can get here. After that, you are ready to sail.

After getting some sailing time, there will be many opportunities that will be right at our fingertips. There is the Santa Barbara Youth Foundation Summer Sailing program that you can read about at the Santa Barbara Youth Foundation web page, and many big boat regattas that you will learn about from talking to other sailors. One fun group of races is a big boat race held every Wednesday. These are called Wet Wednesdays. The boats that race in these are always looking for young, agile crew, so you should have no problem finding a boat to sail on. Then, when High School is over, there are many colleges that have sailing teams. These colleges offer many scholarships if they think that you will benefit their sailing team. So sailing isn't just fun in High School, but it will help you pay for college too.

I am very excited about our new team and I hope you are as well. It is a great opportunity to be part of an activity that takes place on the ocean. The skills we develop will stay with us forever. Please feel free to call me with any questions at (805) 259-9274. Your parents can also call my parents (Sabrina and Tony) if they want more information.