The Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club has a packed schedule for youth racing for spring, summer and fall. Club Manager Charles Barclay gave a rundown of the history of youth racing and how the current program became what it is.

Prior to the 1950s, all youth racers were exclusively members of the club, which was considered to be highly unorganized. By 1954, the club, then located in the main part of the harbor, offered summer and fall programs for youth racers. In the 1960s, the club moved to West Harbor Pond.

In 2010, the club saw the need to expand the programs and racing seasons to spring, summer and fall, so it bought the adjacent property, known as the McKown House, which has since been demolished and is being rebuilt.

By the 2011 racing seasons, the programs were expanded. They run a total of 32 weeks, from late March to early November – 10 weeks in the spring, 10 in the summer, and 11 in the fall.

Barclay said the programs accommodate sailors as young as 6. The club will officially add powerboat training next year, he said.

“We already do a little bit of that with (14 to 17 year olds). We will teach them how to use the powerboats so they can become US Sailing-certified instructors,” said Barclay,adding, all instructors must be United States Sailing Association (US Sailing)-certified.

Barclay said he and Sailing Director Chris Liberti are both level three US Sailing-certified instructors. Three instructors are certified at level two, which concentrates on safety and performance sailing, and all junior instructors are at least level one-certified.

Liberti, a Boothbay Region High School and Boothbay Region Elementary School science, engineering, technology and math (STEM) teacher, raced for the University of Rhode Island in his heyday and looks forward to his third year as an instructor at BHYC. Level two instructors will include Aidan Clark, Caleb Gray and Tori Thompson. Clark and Gray are racing partners and Tori “Rocket” Thompson, who sails for the Stanford University Sailing Team, will be taking a break from her aerospace engineering studies this summer to coach for another season. Boothbay native Cole Brauer, a four-year varsity letter winner of the University of Hawaii Sailing Team, will be joining as a coach in the fall season and will help with a new “Learn To Sail” program at the same time.

On Thursday, July 12 and Friday, July 13, the club will host the Maine State Opti Championship because one of its sailors, Hamilton Barclay, won it last year in Portland,and winners host the next championship.

“Boothbay has won the event five times that I am aware of,” said Barclay, “The trophy is hanging down in the clubhouse right now.”

In addition to the Optimist International (Opti), the club also races the Club 420 (C420), a boat primarily used in high school and college racing and a premier junior race training boat. From Monday, July 9 to Wednesday, June 11, the club will host the Maine State C420 Championships and the Area A qualifier for the Bemis and Smythe Trophy.

Said Charles Barclay, “Kids will be coming from all around New England to qualify for the national championship … They’ll be competing against our own sailors as well as those from Southport Yacht Club. Christmas Cove, Rockland and Portland will all be descending on Boothbay for that week of sailing. That’ll be pretty exciting.”

He estimated more than 200 sailors will come to the event. It's one of the reasons the BHYC applied to build a bigger pier with ramps and floats – “… So we can launch a lot of boats and launch them quickly," he said.

The sailing programs do not always stick around in Boothbay Harbor, said Barclay. Over the weekend, sailors traveled to Quincy, Massachusetts to race among the Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology stomping grounds on the Charles River. They also look forward to competing on Mount Desert Island and in Rockland and Portland later this spring. Last year, sailors even traveled as far as Bellport, New York and Newport, Rhode Island to compete.

“Our kids are becoming known as some of the fastest sailors in the Northeast,” said Barclay. “That’s throughout New England, not just in Maine.”

Currently ranked third for team racing in Maine, Barclay said the racers have been performing so well that even though they have been pulling racers up from middle school for high school racing, they are excluded from junior varsity events.

But racing is only a part of what BYHC does, said Barclay. The club also has a fleet of nine Tech Dinghies, a model of college racing boats designed by MIT in the 1930’s. These boats are a stable platform for adults and older youth to train on, he said. In August, the club will host the New York Yacht Club for a team racing event in the Tech Dinghies.

Ultimately, the club is about teaching and is the opposite of exclusive.

“We not only welcome non-member kids and members of the community to come and be part of our programs, but we actually offer scholarships,” said Barclay.

Every year, the club offers $15,000 in scholarships which give program access to about 15 kids.

“If kids are interested and would like to sail and think money is an issue, I would encourage them to apply and we’ll make sure money is not an issue. They’ll get a chance to sail.”