Sunday, January 22, 2006

Interesting Sailing Related Links: 470 Video

This video has been featured on a couple of other sailing blogs (Wetass Chronicles and Eli Boat) but I really enjoyed watching it and thought I'd post it here too. Even though the 470 is now being overshadowed by the new skiff classes the video shows how much fun it can be to sail a double handed dinghy. The music gives it the feel of a high school graduation slide show but there are some great shots of high speed reaches and some really good overhead shots of tacks that show the timing and teamwork that goes into sailing one of these boats.
When I was working at the St. Croix Yacht Club as a sailing instructor I met Chris, Scott and Peter Stanton who were local kids with some great sailing talent. Their family was originally from the Jersey shore and the boys regularly cleaned up on the Caribbean J24 circuit in their boat Jersey Devil. While I was teaching at the yacht club, Scott and Peter had managed to find an old 470 that was so soft that you could watch it flex over every wave. The boys were only about 14 years old, but they were incredible sailors. I remember that the boys travelled to regattas in Miami and did acceptably well considering the condition of their boat. Scott Stanton now sails for Texas A&M and Peter sails for Eckerd College. Peter was third (with older brother Chris Stanton as crew) in the 470 at the 1999 Miami OCR and is registered for the 2006 Miami OCR. If I have time I'll follow his results in Miami and post them here.

1 comment:

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