Everything at Once — Redwood High Tops Northern League
It’s like this. The highest-ranking high school sailing team in Northern California is not recognized by the school. That won’t keep us from congratulating the sailors from Redwood High who won the Northern League Championship in April, but it might leave open the question of where to put the trophy. It might also leave us with surprised readers if we tell you that’s not at all unheard-of.
But there’s good news. Eighteen schools were represented at the NorCals, whether they knew it or not. A historic trophy, repurposed, was on the line for the first time, with the sweetener for the winners of a foundation-sponsored trip to a regatta in Annapolis. Both prizes were aimed at pumping energy into the scene.
The Peninsula Youth Sailing Foundation, Redwood City, hosted two days of racing, with 24 races combined for A and B divisions. “PY” won a lot of love for providing a matched fleet of Flying Juniors — no trailering to this one — and keeping the rotations moving. Top boat was Redwood A, skippered by Morgan Headington and crewed by Henry Vare. They finished with six points in the bank over the Bay School’s Caleb (“We’re a young team”) Everett and crew Anna Rauh.
For the record, Redwood is located in Marin and ranked ninth in the Pacific Coast district, and Morgan and Henry most of the time would rather be wingfoiling. Because, for the record, FJs are not 21st-century fast. Their value lies on the chess-game side, as Morgan sums up: “FJs help me develop strategies for speed and distance to a starting line. But I feel the need for speed — unless I’m winning.” He’s got that going, and Henry is fully invested in crewing, for now. With Morgan about to graduate, Henry said, “… and Morgan being so talented, and because we’re both wingriders and we’re in sync, this is my opportunity to sponge everything I can.”
The San Francisco Yacht Club is home base for the Redwood team, which went after B division with a vengeance. Feva-class North American champion Rhett Krawitt took turns skippering with Mark Xu, and they topped B, while Encinal High’s Emi Puertas skippered the second-place boat. Redwood domination featured driver shifts plus crew shifts between Akira Bratti and Whitney Feagin, depending on the breeze, and it’s teamwork that keeps sailors devoted to this corner of the game. “Being part of a team is critical,” Rhett said. “You don’t always get that in club sailing.”
It might also be true that, in the teen years, the social aspect is (almost) everything.
Rhett, like his teammates, sailed Optis in his younger years, but he is alone in winning his first Opti regatta not long after “getting the bad guys out.” Back in the day, that was Rhett’s little-kid way of understanding the chemotherapy that saw a frail, wasting body through leukemia. Now he’s a robust survivor. Winning boat races is one way to keep Mom’s eyes misting over.
OK, the trophy: It began as the keeper for the 1981 California Cup, won in the Six Metre St. Francis VII by a crew of very young men, all of whom had been crack Laser sailors in their teens: John Bertrand, Paul Cayard, Craig Healy, Steve Jeppesen and Ken Keefe. Three out of five were Olympians-to-be, and five for five were world-class in any boat.