Head down to the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club around 2:30 p.m. on any given weekday and you will see young people rigging sailboats. The Junior Sailing Team is open to anyone in the region, but due to its location, its members are currently all Boothbay region students from seventh to 12th grade. Sailing is a club sports team, and as such it is affiliated with the Yacht Club and not the Boothbay Region school system. The principle money for the budget was raised at the 2012 Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club Junior Program Foundation Nautical Auction. The team, started two years ago by sailing parent Mary Jo Poitras and Yacht Club members Pauline Dion and Dr. Charles Koch, just finished their spring sailing season, which ran from April 9 to May 17. Despite an active sailing community in the Midcoast, Dion said the team is the first of its kind in the region. “There was a void to fill, and we had obviously interested student sailors and a ton of support to get it going from parents, yacht club members, and basically the community,” Dion said. The yacht club provides three 420 racing sailboats for practice, and for an informal regatta hosted at the club on May 19, there were nine yacht club boats on the water. The club also provides dry suits so the team can continue to practice and compete even when the water is below regulation temperature for sailing. A regatta is a series of boat races with the winner determined by a panel of judges. They can either be individual races, in which single boats from different schools race against one another, or team races, in which three boats from each team race against each other. The Junior Sailing Team does two types of courses: a straight course in which the boats sail out to a certain point before turning and sailing back, and a triangle style race in which they sail to two different points before returning to their starting point. The team typically competes in individual races, however the May 19 regatta was a team race against the Rockland sailing team. Though they lost a few close races out the outset, they pulled through and finished first in the last team race. In a regatta in Cape Elizabeth earlier this month, the Junior Sailing Team placed second overall, beating several larger competitors, including Cheverus, Cape Elizabeth, Southern Maine and Portland High School. Sally Lloyd has been the team’s coach for two years. Her brother Sam Lloyd, also an experienced sailor, has been helping out for the last few weeks. “It’s pretty sweet because it’s a young team and you get to build with them,” Sally Lloyd said. She was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm and skill the young team members exhibited. All of the young sailors said they enjoy being part of the team, where they have the opportunity to do what they love while meeting others who share the same passion. At a practice last week, they arrived right after school, playfully griping about their pre-sailing duties. When asked to help inflate flotation devices that prevent the boats from fully capsizing, one of them retorted “I ain’t blowing one of those things up!” to which Lloyd firmly replied, “Yes you are.” The young sailor reluctantly began to do as he was told. Lloyd is cheerful and social, but commands a presence among the members of her team. Her ability to calm and refocus the young team promotes cohesion and success both on and off the water. Though the spring season just ended, the sailors are gearing up for a summer program, where they can continue to sail. Summer members are a mix of those who are part of the team during the school year, former team sailors and young people who sail at the Southport Yacht Club during the summer. For more information on the Junior Sailing Team, call 633-5750 or visit the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club website at www.bhyc.net.