On Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 11 and 12, the Southport Yacht Club and Southport Junior Yacht Club Sailing Foundation hosted the Maine State Optimist Dinghy Championship. Eighty young sailors, 10 to 15 years old, from up and down the Maine coast, plus a few from as far away as the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron and Hingham Yacht Club in Massachusetts, came to Cozy Harbor on Southport for this annual event.

Optimist dinghies are 8-foot long sailboats that are sailed and raced around the world. Each year’s Maine State Championship is hosted by the yacht club whose sailor won the prior year event. SYC and SJYCSF hosted this year’s event because one of their sailors, Andrew Turley, won last year’s event.

The slogan for this year’s event was “Sheepscot Bay, Sail It If You Can,” and was emblazoned on T-shirts given to competitors. This turned out to be a very appropriate slogan because the Sheepscot hit the young sailors with a variety of conditions. On Tuesday, sailors encountered stormy conditions with rain and strong winds with gusts up to 25 knots. Three races were sailed in those conditions.

By the third race, almost a third of the sailors had retired due to capsizing and exhaustion. One coach boat from a visiting club ended up on the Hendrick’s Head shore after getting blown in among the Hendrick’s Head ledges. The coach and coach boat were towed off the shore without any damage. The winds even proved too much for an event tent that had been erected on the SYC lawn. The winds blew down the tent.

On Wednesday, the day started with fog and no wind. Then a light northerly breeze arrived and cleared the fog out, allowing for one race. The northerly fizzled, but fortunately a nice southerly breeze came in, along with the sun, and allowed for three more races to be sailed.

At the beginning and end of each day the Southport Yacht Club was quite a sight with all the visiting boats stored on the lawns surrounding the SYC. With all the sails, boats, and gear, walking around the SYC grounds was a challenge. A large crew of SYC and SJYCSF parents, grandparents, instructors, and students worked hard to be excellent hosts for the visiting sailors.

On the water, volunteers ran the races, set and moved marks, and provided safety and spectator boats. Breakfast, lunch, hot chocolate on Tuesday, and a cookout on Wednesday were enjoyed and appreciated by the visiting sailors and their parents. Assistance was provided to the visiting sailors when launching and hauling out their boats. As sailors departed from the shore on their way to the race course area, a crew of young Southport sailors gave a big cheer for each Optimist sailor. Other volunteers supervised parking both at the SYC and at the Southport Central School, registration, trophies, goody bags, raffle prizes, and various other aspects of the regatta.

The overall winner for the regatta was Ryan Anderson from the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron. The winner of the perpetual trophy, which goes to the sailor from a Maine yacht club with the best score, was Hayden Van Alstine from the Portland Yacht Club. Local sailors who won trophies were Emma Rose van der Veen and Hamilton Barclay from the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club, who won first place in the Blue Fleet and first place in the White Fleet, respectively, and Charlie Apolinsky and Conner McWhan from the SJYCSF who came in second in the Blue Fleet and third in the White Fleet, respectively. The Championship Fleet for Optimist Dinghy regattas is divided into three subsets, the White Fleet for the youngest sailors, the Blue Fleet for the next youngest, and the Red Fleet for the oldest sailors.

The SYC and SJYCSF give special thanks to Hodgdon Yacht Services for providing coach boat and spectator boat launching and haul out services, as well as trailer storage; to the Southport Central School for very nicely allowing visiting cars to be parked at the school; to the McCann family for loaning their boat as the Championship Fleet signal boat; to the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club for sharing marks and anchors; and to the many families and individuals who provided monetary donations to the event.