The team of Jack Parkin (Riverside, Conn.), Jacob Rosenberg (Huntington Beach, Calif.), Wiley Rogers (Houston, Texas), Victoria Thompson (Newport Beach, Calif.), and Bram Brakman (Darien, Conn.) of the United States earned the Silver Medal at the HARKEN Youth Match Racing World Championship, the highest finish for the U.S. in event history. Australian James Hodgson and his crew of Harry Hall, Louis Schofield and Nick Rozenauers took first place honors. Read the final release.
Quotes from Jack Parkin:
On the team persevered and continued to improve all week –
“We spent a long two weeks down in Auckland and we were lucky enough to attend a warm-up regatta for the World Championship. This allowed the team to learn the boats and to continually improve. This especially was true at the the World Championship after a shaky start to the regatta. We managed to learn from all our earlier mistakes and only make each mistake once. Using this new found knowledge and the team’s perseverance to keep fighting, we started to gain traction and beat some great teams to make it to the finals.”
On the team’s biggest strengths at Worlds –
“During the Worlds we noticed that our pre-starts, upwind speed, and boat handing was world class. We managed to develop our downwind speed and tactics mid regatta and that is where we really made our jump and started accumulating wins.”
More on their preparation and how the team came together –
“Spending the prior week to the World Championship at the pre-Worlds regatta was extremely helpful as it allowed us to learn the boats and get use to the extreme tides in Auckland Harbor. Additionally, the race committee used unorthodox port roundings and offsets to battle the current, which was new to us. The team came together during the event by remaining relaxed, remaining confident in our proven strengths, and knowing that we are getting better, faster than anyone else. We also tried to keep the atmosphere light and have fun doing the sport we all love.”
On what’s next for this team –
“Now all the members of the team are going back to their respective schools, with four of us sailing at Stanford and one at Tufts. Although this is different sailing, I am sure the lessons we learned and will learn in these different disciplines will only improve our overall sailing skills for the next big events we face.”
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