College Sailing Nationals Wraps up

Photo By Bill Symes

The 2011 ICSA College Sailing Nationals was a great success this year and we were fortunate to be a part of it. With the event taking place in our own backyard, we had people on the water, organizing the event, and selling gear. Sperry Topsider was there sponsoring the Women's Finals and promoting their shoes. Annapolis Sailing Performance Sponsored the Team race event, and Gill took care of the Co-ed Finals.

We had our mobile shop setup to get gear to sailors in need, and it was a good thing we did. Many east coast teams were expecting sunny warm west coast weather and were a bit surprised when the Gorge through them a curve ball. With fog and rain for the beginning of the event, warmer sailing gear was in demand. We sold out of the event shirts on the second day and had to order more... only to sell out again! In the end we had to take orders and ship shirts out to participants that want to purchase size we were out of.

With the large amount of rain we've have been getting in the Northwest and sudden warm temperature that melted lots of the snow, they had to fully open the damns on the Columbia River. This in turn led to the current to rip! Somedays were worse than others but we saw a maximum of about 5.5 knots coming through. Check out this video of the Women's teams fighting the current to round the leeward mark.

Results can be found on the event website: http://2011nationals.collegesailing.info/

Our live Coverage from the event can be found here: http://qik.com/westcoastsailing

Videos and interview from Sail Groove can be found here: Womens, Team Race

Photos can be found here: Bill Symes, Sean Trew

We've been extremely busy gearing up for sailing season here in the shop. We're ready for some more major regattas and have a bunch of new gear to prove it. Stay tuned for some major announcements in the coming weeks!