Alec Stewart makes US Opti National Sailing Team
Alec Stewart ,age 13, makes US Opti National Sailing Team and will represent the US in Nieuwpoort, Belgium this summer at the Flanders International Youth Race Week. Last summer Alec competed at the Opti Nationals held on Long Island where he qualified for Team Trials. Team Trials were held at Noroton YC in Darien CT April 30-May3. The top 214 sailors from around the United States competed to make the US National Team and a chance to represent the US at the summer international regattas. The US will be sending teams to Worlds, Europeans, North Americans, Belgium, and British Nationals.
The Team Trials Regatta was a 4 day event light to moderate shifting breeze and strong current made this a challenging event. The first day put the kids on the water at 10:00am and they did not pull their boats out of the water until 6:30pm the Race committee was able to get 4 complete race sequences it due to the number of sailors each race had 3 starts. Alec was 113 after the first day. As the regatta progressed Alec had moved up to 60th with a 3rd and two 5th place finishes. On the final day only 2 races were run due to impending thunder storms. Alec had his best finish by winning the first race of the day. This race pushed his final position to 50th overall giving him a place on the US National Team and a place on Team USA for Flanders.
Alec is a member of the DBMS sailing team and starting sailing at DBMS at age 9.
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