NJISA 2019 BBYRA High School Invitational

It was a very exciting day for NJISA as eleven schools, making up fifteen sailing teams, arrived at TRYC for the inaugural Barnegat Bay Yacht Racing Association [aka BBRYA] High School Invitational Regatta. The partnership between NJISA, BBYRA and the Sailing Foundation of Barnegat Bay became a visible reality today as the team took to the water in the brand new fleet of Laser Performance FJs with the colorful sails emblazoned with the BBRYA lighthouse logo.

Under clear skies with a light and cool, slightly oscillating, westerly breeze of 4-8 knots, three A division races were completed, and two B division races on the W4 course before the temperature rose and the wind shut off. The teams returned to shore for approximately an hour postponement while waiting for the 180° wind direction change and the easterly breeze to fill in. The course was reset and the sea breeze gradually settled in as it worked right from east to southeast while steadily building to about 10 knots. A Division sailors returned to compete the second race of their second rotation, then the normal A-B rotations followed, resulting in a total of 6 races completed in each division for the day.

The Rumson-Fair Heaven Bulldogs, with the A Division skipper-crew combo of Colleen O'Brien and Morgan Rice, and B Division combo of Michaela O'Brien and Amelia Buch set their team apart from all the others with a 16 point lead at the end of the day over the Southern Regional Rams who finished in 2nd place. The Christian Brothers Academy Colts pulled off a 1 point advantage over the Toms River North Mariners to seal their 3rd place standing for the day thanks to two top finishes by their B Division sailors in the last set.

RFH's Colleen O'Brien and Morgan Rice won A Division; The Rams' Brielle Willoughby and her three crew Bridget Green, Natalie Shaw and Nate Ertle put Southern in 2nd place for A Division and Brooke Schmeltz and her crews Ashley Abboud and Jack Whitman gave the Ranney Panthers a 3rd place division finish for the day.

B Division was handily won by RFH's Michaela O'Brien and Amelia Buch, with five bullets and one 2nd, with CBA's Colin Guerrera and Connor Feury earning the Colts a 2nd place division finish. Southern's Bridget Green and Joe Mrazek rounded out the top three in B Division.

Many thanks to OCC for the use of SCOWNDREL as the RC boat and Toms River South & OCC sailing alumni Mitchell Nunn as PRO and keeping the pace moving along with Nick Rinaldi serving as scorer for the day. And as always, thanks to TRYC for the use of their facilities and continued support of high school sailing and NJISA.

Special thanks to all who have already donated to support the new fleet of FJs and thank you in advance to anyone who clicks on the following link and contributes towards achieving our goal.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/NJISA-FJ-Fleet-Fundraiser?sharetype=teams&member=1798020&rcid=r01-156918324154-31aaff0dbb784024&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

The following chart shows the relative rank of the teams as of the race indicated. Note that the races are ordered by number, then division, which may not represent the order in which the races were actually sailed.

The first place team as of a given race will always be at the top of the chart. The spacing from one team to the next shows relative gains/losses made from one race to the next. You may hover over the data points to display the total score as of that race.