— from Sail Orcas —
Orcas High School students sail in the Ray Jarecki Regatta
Sail Orcas hosted the Northwest Interscholastic Sailing Association Ray Jarecki Youth Regatta July 25 and 26 at Orcas Island Yacht Club (OIYC).
The Ray Jarecki Youth Regatta had an excellent turn out and the weather was fantastic for sailing. We had 8 to 16 kts of breeze on Saturday and 4 to 8 kts on Sunday and we were able to get off at least 10 races in all five fleets and even squeezed in 12 races in the Opti division. West Sound showed off its nature of being a perfect venue for youth sailing this weekend. Many thanks go to the dozens of volunteers that helped to make it a great weekend of sail boat racing.
[The Youth Regatta was named in honor of the founder of the Jr. Sailing Program on Orcas, Ray Jarecki.]
Ray and his wife Diane moved to Orcas in 1992 retiring from a long and successful business career in Pasadena, CA. They were at the time both avid boaters and sailboat racers. By that time Ray had won the Kettenburg Pacific Class national championship in 1976 and 1979 and raced his J-36 to Hawaii in the 1983 Transpac.
Once on Orcas they bought a Grand Banks they named Avanti which they loved to cruise locally and on many adventurous trips to Alaska. When the Jarecki’s moved to Orcas they joined the Orcas Island Yacht Club and became very active in that organization. As the Vice Commodore of the OIYC in 1996 Ray took it upon himself to push the club to start a Junior Sailing program. It has been a very successful program with many hundreds of Island children going through the summer sailing lessons over the years. Ray managed it’s operation with the help of Yacht Club volunteers for the next 11 years giving generously of his time and money.
With Ray’s guidance the Yacht Club’s Junior Sailing Program was merged with the Sail Orcas group 2007 in order to leverage the common goals and tax structure of the two groups.
The next youth circuit regatta is the Bellingham Youth Regatta on Bellingham Bay Aug 8-9. — link to the registration: https://jrskitosea.byc.org/2015-byr-registration-form-online/
(Thanks to Michele Wiley)
