A perfect day for a sail but, this young sailor is not alone.
It turns out there are close to 300 of these small boats each helmed by a 10-15 year old boy or girl.
And one by one they are launched into this harbor in Tampa Bay for six hours of competition in the St. Petersburg Yacht Club 2020 Valentine's Day Regatta.
This regatta is part of the 2020 United States Optimist Dinghy Association (USODA) Team Trials Qualifying event. The Optimist dinghy is one of the most popular sailing dinghies in the world, with over 150,000 boats officially registered with the class and many more built but never registered. USODA mission is to support and sustain junior sailors, their families, and junior sailing programs and promote fun, safety, self-reliance, and good sportsmanship.
So, six hours later, how do they get all those boats back onto the dock with a minimum of chaos?
The assisting power boats tether a few of the sailboats together at a time and tow them back to the dock area, untie the line, and the young captains take it the last distance to the docks. It is quite an orchestrated scene by the sponsors. At least until the last bit.......
As I said, there were many, many, many of them! It brought to my mind the famous monarch butterflies returning to Mexico.
The assisting power boats tether a few of the sailboats together at a time and tow them back to the dock area, untie the line, and the young captains take it the last distance to the docks. It is quite an orchestrated scene by the sponsors. At least until the last bit.......
As I said, there were many, many, many of them! It brought to my mind the famous monarch butterflies returning to Mexico.
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