Once again, there was a great week of weather and sailing at the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club Junior Sailing Program.

We had many participants for our weekly Friday races and a good time was had by all.

For the morning class, our younger group of sailors, Ben Hicks took home the top prize. He finished first overall with 12 total points. Ryan Russell came in a close second with 15 points over four races. Finally, Gus McGee finished third overall with 17 points.

Later in the day, the advanced Opti race team was shredding the water. The top three finishers were Jax van der Veen, Aidan Clark and Caleb Gray respectively. Aiden started off the day hot with a quick victory, demolishing the rest of the fleet. Jax then followed up with a victory of her own in the second race. In the third race it began to look like a game of cat and mouse between Aidan and Jax when Aidan came out of the gates hot and didn’t let up for his second victory of the day.

Going into the fourth and final race, Jax and Aidan were separated by a mere point. The real game changer occurred when Jax decided to stray from the fleet on the downwind leg of the race and go to the left when everyone else went right. This maneuver paid dividends when she won the race and the overall competition with a total of 8 points.

Aidan finished in a close second with 12 points. Finally, Caleb was solid with a handful of top three finishes that earned him an overall third-place finish with 13 points.

Following the afternoon class the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club held Family 420 Friday, where a junior program sailor teams up with a parent/guardian/mentor in a series of 420 races.

We had a full crowd and filled up a full fleet of nine 420s. Yacht club instructor Tom Clark and junior sailor Emma van der Veen came out on top with three first-place finishes and a second-place finish. Second place went to Ryan and Bob McCann and instructor Colin and Jax van der Veen came in third.

Finally, our week was rounded out with our annual Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club Potluck Barbecue and Talent Show.

The talent show was a time for our sailors and staff members to showcase their talents outside of sailing. Five awards were given out: most athletic, Helmut Dungan; most creative, Ryan McCann; most classical, Gray Ferris; best song choices, Tess McComiskey; and most soulful, Parker Elkins. All participants were fabulous and it was a great finish to a great week.