Lucas Pierce's Blog

I went to St. Petersburg, Florida for a two-day clinic followed by a two-day regatta. Here are some notes on my trip:

Wednesday’s Notes:

I went to school until first recess.

Mom & dad picked me up and took me to get some new long underwear.

Then we went to the airport.

I met my friend Miguel at the airport and we loaded our sails in a special bag I have.

We checked our luggage and took our first flight to Phoenix.

I finished my math super bowl packet on the way to Phoenix.

We didn't have much time until our flight to Tampa, so I had a CPK pizza real quick at the gate.

The flight to Tampa was crowded.

I tried to do my math homework, but got bored quickly.

My dad bought me some Oreo cookies.

I didn't think that flight was ever going to end

Pedro and Rita were almost the last off the plane

Luggage was ready when we got to baggage claim

Dad had arranged for a van to meet us

We need a van because there were six of us and my sail and spar bag is eight feet long

The van took us across Tampa Bay to St. Petersburg

It took about a half hour

We checked into the hotel and put our bags in our rooms

I got to push the luggage cart around

We went to get something to eat

It was late in St. Petersburg

I had chicken tenders they were really good

There was college basketball on TV

The name of the diner was “Angies"

We went to bed at 12:30.

Thursday’s Notes:

We woke up at 730 which is 430 California time

We walked over to the sailing center

First we got our charter boats: boat, dollies, and spars

Then i got my new sail and rigged it on a small patch of grass

We went to a meeting where they explained the plan for the day

We docked out about 1030

We had a short race to determine what groups we would be in

There were five groups

I was over early and had to restart to i was in one of the last groups

I learned al lot about my new sail today

After sailing we hauled, rinsed and derigged our boats

I left my sail up to dry, but my dad came when i was in debrief and finished putting my boat away for me

We went back to the hotel and i took a shower then we went to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner

I had pasta, two big glasses of milk and a piece of Miguel’s pizza

We went back to the hotel, watched some TV and went to sleep.

Friday’s Notes:

More clinic.

Had breakfast at the hotel before walking over to the sailing center.

You could make your own waffles there. They were good, but I had trouble eating them because I have a loose tooth.

When we got to the sailing center our dad’s helped us rig our boats before we went in to our morning meeting.

Miguel’s mom, dad and younger brother drove to the Everglades to go sight seeing and see the alligators.

It was a windy day.

We sailed for a while, but the weather was getting worse so they brought us in.

I was sailing soooooo fast on the way in!

We spend almost four hours in the classroom while the storm went through.

Too long. My bottom was itchy!

After class my dad took Miguel and I back to the hotel for a shower.

Then we went out to dinner the Wilson’s. It was Dane’s birthday. He turned 15.

We went to the same Italian restaurant as the night before, but I didn’t care. The food was really good and it was fun to hang out with Dane and Quinn.

Miguel’s mom and dad met us on the way back to the hotel.

We watched TV for a while and then went to bed.

Saturday’s Notes

I was really nervous before sailing on Saturday. It was so windy that even if I was over 100 lbs. I couldn’t have kept the boat flat.

It was blowing about 25 knots with puffs over 30.

It was downwind to the racecourse and I was scared I was going to nosedive and capsize.

Craig caught up to me and calmed me down a little.

He helped me flatten my sail, told be to sit as far back in the boat as I could and don’t try to gybe.

He told me to chicken gybe (tack) instead.

There were boats wiped out everywhere.

I tried to sail the first race.

I got to the weather mark toward the back of the fleet, and nosedived when a puff hit me as I was leaning in to see where the mark was. Next time I’m going to lean out to see under the boom!

I was thrown from my boat and a professional photographer got a picture of the wipeout.

I made it to the leeward mark, but couldn’t get back upwind.

A judge’s boat helped me until my dad and Coach Craig could come get me. It was really windy and I was really cold and scared.

Craig, Gui and my dad derigged my boat on the water. Miguel and Quinn were sailing well, but were too cold to keep sailing so they didn’t sail the second race either.

My dad said Miguel was almost hypothermic.

The good part is that we got finished early.

They had hot chocolate for us at the Sailing Center.

We went back to the hotel, took hot showers and then went to the St. Petersburg Pier for a late lunch.

After lunch my dad and I took a trolley tour of St Petersburg.

We saw a lot of cool stuff like the old Vinoy Hotel, the Salvador Dali Museum and a bunch of churches. I really liked getting to see the town.

The St. Petersburg Yacht Club had a dinner for us on Saturday night. It is fanciest yacht club I have ever been in. My dad said it is probably the fanciest yacht club he’s ever been in too (and he’s been to a lot of Yacht Clubs!).

They had a cool slide show, a buffet dinner and a raffle. I didn’t win anything. Neither did Miguel.

There were about 200 kids there and almost everyone was wearing their red hoodies that we got for participating in the regatta.

I had to go to bed early because Sunday was going to be a big day.

Sunday’s Notes:

It was an early start today.

We launched at 0800 which means rigged and ready at 0745.

That means finishing breakfast at 0715, which means starting breakfast at 0645 which means getting up at 0615. Too early!!!

My dad helped me get dressed and rigged and then my friend Miguel’s dad Gui helped me launch while my dad went back to the hotel to pack us up, checkout, print our boarding passes, check our luggage and confirm our ground transportation.

We sailed about halfway out to the racecourse and our coach Craig towed us the rest of the way out.

I tuned my sail by adjusting my outhaul, sprit tension and vang for the conditions.

We sailed four races today. It was blowing 10-15 most of the time, but there were some lulls that were light enough to have us sitting in our boats.

The hardest part today was the starts. I was trying to be in the front row, but it was really crowded and everyone was crashing into me. Everyone was head to wind, so the umpires couldn’t really call any fouls.

My upwind speed was just so-so. I’m still trying to figure out my new sail.

I was at least even speed with the kids around me downwind.

It was really cold and cloudy. I was wearing a base layer, a mid layer and a fuzzy underneath my spray top and two pair of long underwear underneath my foulie pants.

I was in the first flight for the first race, so I finished with the first group. My dad and Miguel’s dad de-rigged my boat on the water while we waited for Miguel’s race to finish.

Miguel had a really good regatta. He had some top-ten finishes and finished 31^st in the regatta. I finished 117^th in Gold Fleet, my friends Quinn and Dane had a great regatta: Quinn finished 22^nd and Dane won!

Results

Click here for an article by our coach, Craig Wilson

I wish we could have stayed for the trophy presentation, but we had to catch our plane home.

We picked up Miguel on the tow and were one of the first to get back to the dock.

We rinsed the boats, turned them back in to the charter company and loaded our sails in a special bag with a tube in it.

Dad had arranged for a van to be there waiting for us. Miguel’s mom and the driver had loaded all of our luggage at the hotel and then brought the van over to the Sailing Center.

We couldn’t use a regular taxi because there were six of us and the sail bag is eight feet long.

From the time we hit the dock to the time we were driving away was less than a half hour.

Quinn and Dan’s mom got us some burritos to eat on the way to the airport. Mine was good, but too spicy.

We got the airport with just enough time to stuff our sailing gear in our bags, check in, go through security and get on the plane without being in too much of a rush.

I did another couple of pages of math on the flight from Tampa to Phoenix and tried to read a little bit.

Mostly I just played on my DS.

It’s a long flight from Tampa to Phoenix. It’s almost five hours.

We didn’t have very much time to make our flight from Phoenix to Santa Barbara and we had to change terminals.

They were loading the plane when we got to the gate.

I was so tired on the flight from Phoenix to Santa Barbara. I slept a little.

We got to Santa Barbara at 9:30 Santa Barbara time—that’s 12:30 a.m. Florida time.

I got up at 6:15 a.m. Florida time, sailed four races, flew all the way across the country and went to bed at 1:00 a.m. Florida time. No wonder I was tired!

One of the types of sailboats I race is called an Optimist ("Opti" for short). They race them a lot in other parts of the US and all over the world, but they are kind of new to Southern California.

I am racing in a series of regattas called the SoCal Series. The first event was in Santa Barbara at Halloween, the second event was in Ventura a couple of weeks ago and the next event is this weekend at Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club in San Pedro (Long Beach).

The Goblin Regatta in Santa Barbara wasn't very windy. We had good wind one race and that was one of my best races. I finished ninth overall and fourth in my age group. There were 26 kids in the Championship Fleet. Click here for an article on the the SBYSF Website, click here for results and click here for photos.

The Fall Regatta in Ventura wasn't very windy either. It was really shifty, but that kind of helped me. I'm good at staying in phase. I came in fifth overall out of 24 boats and had my best score in the last race (2nd). I finished second in my age group and my friend Miguel finished first.

Click here for an article on the SBYSF website, click here for results and scroll down to the bottom of the article for a link to photos. The password for photos is "jt". My sail number is 17279 and my brother's sail number is 17152.

I'm sorta looking forward to sailing this weekend's regatta. I like to travel and stay in hotels. Some of my friends are going too, so it will be fun.