This past week marked the exciting start of the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club's nine-week Junior Sailing program. Six young sailors arrived for the morning class, sailing Optimist dinghies around the inner harbor while working on their boat-handling skills. The week's hard work and practice culminated in some friendly racing on Friday, with the third-place ribbon going to Marcus Russell, second-place to Henry Currier, and Emma Van der Veen taking first.

Sailors in the afternoon class represented a broad range of ages and experience levels and all found a place in the program's four groups: cruising and racing Optis, as well as cruising and racing 420s. Friday race results for the afternoon class are as follows: in Optis, third-place went to Hali Goodwin, second to Hunter Short, and first going to Jaqueline Van der Veen. In the double-handed 420 class boats, skipper Levi Emery and crew Alex Dore placed third, skipper Carroline Hunt and crew Kyle Morand took second, and skipper Katherine Clark and crew Corrine Poitras took home the first-place ribbon. Congratulations to all June 18th participants for an excellent first week.

Students of the Junior Sailing program are fortunate to learn from our energetic and passionate staff, including instructors Thomas Clark, Sam Lloyd, and Sara Mac Swanson and junior apprentices Catherine Clark, Myron Hahn and Caroline Hunt.