World-champion sailors take to the waters of Sarasota Bay for annual regatta

SARASOTA, Fla. - Sailing champions from all over the world were in Sarasota last week for the 50th Sunfish World Championship, which wrapped up on Friday. 

"What’s fun about the Sunfish is that it’s all about the fleet, so it’s a great group of people," stated Alyssa Thomas, manager at Sarasota Sailing Squadron.

This type of sailing is done on a sunfish boat and everyone is in a one-person boat bought specifically for the regatta. 

"These boats generally weigh the same as the sailors do," explained Thomas. They are literally using their body weight to help power them. So, you’ll see them hiking off the sides, holding onto the sail controls, holding onto the left side of the boat and then they are just hiked as hard as they can."

The races are windward-leeward, which is upwind. However, since sailboats can’t go directly upwind they zig-zag upwind and sail downwind for two laps. 

"Unlike cars on a racetrack where you have a lane for you to follow, you have all of the water of Sarasota Bay as your racetrack and you just have to go around a mark and you lean into the port, which is the left side. So, people go all the way out on one tack and then come all the way in on another tack. Some people will play it safe and stay in the middle," Thomas said. 

The sailors in this race are used to sailing very close to each other leaving mere inches or less between boats. 

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"They are used to it and can control the boat from being at a complete stop to get powered up and going," shared Thomas. "Then there’s rules of the road for who has the right-of-way and who’s the stand-down vessel. Especially around the windward mark you see all these boats coming in, wanting to round the windward mark and it’s different than the roundabouts we have over here, but similar because everyone has rules on who’s allowed in and who’s not and who has to yield."

The speed of the boats depends on the speed of the wind, which was pretty high toward the end of the week. 

"We get to be the place for everyone to gather and sail, so we’ve been able to showcase some of our favorite places to visit, or that we get to take visitors, so it’s a lot of fun to show off the hometown," Thomas commented.

LINK: View the regatta results at https://yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=11775.

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