Harry Koeppel Qualifies for

ISAF Youth Worlds

Jan. 14-16, 2012
Long Beach, CA

Harry Koeppel with crew Charles Bocklet of American YC qualified to be the lone American boys representative at the International Sailing Federation’s Youth World Championship in the International 420 class.  Alamitos Bay YC hosted the qualifying regatta over Martin Luther King Day weekend, which was attended by only the best junior sailors in the country, including several other LYC teams.  This is the second consecutive year that an LYC team has been the U.S. representative in the boys’ International 420 class, with Reinier Eenkema van Dijk and Spencer McDonough winning the qualifier in 2011. 

 

   Koeppel and Bocklet showing championship form at the Orange

   Bowl  two weeks earlier.  Photo courtesy Michael Rudnick.

 

In order for Koeppel and Bocklet to qualify for the Youth Worlds, they needed an improbable result in the final race.  The duo would need to win the final race (despite not having won a race to that point in the series), while the leading boys’ team from California would need to sail their worst race of the series and finish no higher than ninth.  The first start of the final race was a general recall.  Forty-five minutes later and just before the 3 p.m. deadline to start the final race, the race committee started an eight-leg race on a relatively short course.  Koeppel and Bocklet won the pin and sailed into better pressure on the left side of the racecourse, giving them a large lead at the windward mark.  Koeppel and Bocklet led around each of the next six marks and crossed the finish line in first, with their primary competition buried in thirteenth place, giving the LYC team the victory by a single point.  The regatta result earned the boys, as well as the top girl team, a berth at the 2012 ISAF Youth Worlds, to be sailed in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, July 12-21, as well as a spot on the prestigious U.S. Olympic Development Team. 

 

   The winners of the U.S. Youth Worlds Qualifier, with Koeppel

   and Bocklet (far right).

 

Several other LYC teams competed at the qualifier.  Reinier Eenkema van Dijk and Spencer McDonough won the bronze medal in the boys International 420, just six points behind Koeppel and Bocklet, and Drew Gallagher with crew Finn Mundinger finished eighth.  Casey Klingler and Julia Rew finished fifth in the girls International 420 class, and Matthew Mollerus, crewing for Duncan Williford of Lauderdale YC, finished sixth in the 29er fleet.  Results.