Unlike soccer or basketball, sailing does not take place on a field or a court. Instead, the “court” is Encinal Yacht Club, located on the Oakland Estuary. Most students at Tech might not know that there is a sailing team. The Oakland Tech sailing team is relatively new. Back in 2022, the team captain Garrett Connorton resurrected the team following its break over the pandemic. Since then, the team has been consistently growing every year.
During the 1930s in England, high school sailing was created with the support of the Interscholastic Sailing Association (ISSA). Over the years, sailing has migrated all over the world and has slowly been recognized as a global high school sport. In the 1990s, the sport became even more popular due to its affordability and popularity in college sports. Unlike most sports, sailing has a unique way of racing and scoring. Racing events, called regattas, consist of two fleets of boats, which each have between 30-40 boats. These fleets are split up based on team ranking, which is categorized by Varsity (A/gold fleet) and JV (B/silver fleet). Sailing has two seasons, with competitions taking place in both fall and spring. Each season features monthly regattas where teams travel to different hosting yacht clubs. Regattas usually have between 5-9 races per fleet that last between 10-30 minutes. This specific format creates an equal playing field for sailors with different skill ranges, and for teams who are based out of Southern California and Northern California.
The main boat type for high school sailing is a “Club Flying Junior.” A CJF is a two person dinghy that weighs about 220 pounds and is around 13 feet long. It is categorized as the bare minimum boat for sailing because it takes very minimal knowledge to sail it, which makes it perfect for highschoolers. Each boat has two roles: the skipper, who steers from the back with the tiller and trims the mainsail, and the crew, who sits up front and handles the jib. Good boat handling requires constant teamwork and trust between sailors to coordinate movements, shift weight during transitions, and react to heavy wind shifts.
One of the most notable parts of sailing is the community. The high school sailing program out of Encinal Yacht Club hosts over 10 different high school teams. “I’ve always said that the best way to get better at sailing is to sail as much as you can against the best competition that you can,” explains Head Coach Cazzie Cutting. “We certainly have that here at EYC Yacht Club.”
With over 90 families registered to Encinal’s Yacht Clubs high school program, efficient coaching is extremely important. Cutting is a highly accomplished Saint Mary’s alum who dominated the high school and college sailing world. With his qualified background, Cutting brings a competitive yet approachable teaching style to the young sailors, emphasizing the fundamentals, sportsmanship, and technique of sailing. Under his guidance, Oakland Tech’s sailing team has quickly established its place in the competitive atmosphere of the high school sailing community. What started as a two person team in 2022 has now grown to a well polished team that fiercely dominates the race course.