It has been a great summer for Marlena Fauer and Christina Lewis sailing for first time together in the C420 Class.  Great results and huge improvment marked their summer to end up with a great performance at the C420 North Americans held by Chautauqua Yacht Club for 83 Teams.  Marlena and Christina finished 3rd Overall and claimed the 2008 Title for the Junior Division.  Stephanie Hudson and Laura McKenna are the new Overall Champions and Louis Padnos and Ben Spector finished second.
Ian Liberty and Jane Rew had also a terrific summer with 2 big wins at Hyannis and Buzzards Bay Regatta.  At North Americans, they were also top ending in 6th place overall and 3rd in the Junior Division.
Christina now will race Snipes and  I420 to keep learning new skills and do more great performances.  She is claiming now the title of supercrew on our No Excuses Team...

Raul Rios started his last Optimist World Championship with no excuses and showed why he is the best and won with two races to go and with great results in all wind conditions. He is now the new World Champion and this is his 4th IODA Title, may be a record in history of the Class!  Ian Barrows (ISV), earned silver.   The result of both sailors shows the great work done in the last few years by the teams from the Caribbean Area.  Puerto Rico won the exciting team-racing final and USVI took bronze. To cap it all Puerto Rico also won the Miami Herald Trophy for the team with the lowest cumulative points of the best four sailors. Bronze was taken by Kristien Kirketerp (DEN).  The leaderboard showed again the diversity of the Class with nine countries in the top ten.  Unfortunately only one sailor form USA was close to the top.  Results: www.optiworld2008.com

The 36th Annual Buzzards Bay Regatta, hosted by the Beverly Yacht Club in Marion, MA, is one of the largest multi-class regattas in the US with approximately 450 boats and 1200 sailors across fifteen different classes. Boats and sailors come to Buzzards Bay off of Cape Cod from all across the Northeast and the country as they look to enjoy the renowned sailing conditions, competition and race management.  Our No Excuses sailors had a great performance in both C420 and 29er classes.  In the 123 boats fleet of C420, Ian Liberty showed his best to win another big event this summer.  Marlena Fauer and Christina Lewis keep improving their skills in this new Class for them and finished a great 10th Overall.  Also new in a Class this summer is Mac Agnese who teammed up with Ian Simms to do his first steps in the 29er Class.  After finishing 12th at Nationals days ago, they practiced hard to get ready for the BBR.  with great tactics and good speed they finished 2nd overall and they are going for more at CORK next week.  With only one month of experience Mac is a contender in the Class and everyone is impressed with his learning curve.   www.buzzardsbayregatta.com

Fabulous ending at the 2008 USODA Nationals in Patchogue, NY held by the South Bay Scooter Club for 346 optimist sailors from USA, BER, JPN, USVI, BAR, IRL, IVB and CAN.  The final scores showed five sailors on 2 points difference.  The new format used at this regatta was very interesting and allowed the RC to run many races in a short period of time and proved to be very close racing for the sailors.  Christopher Williford perseverance, hard work and talent (plus the coaching from Lucas Calabrese) make him the new US National Champion defeating by only one point over our friend "Scooter" Barbano who was tied in 21 points with Alex Curtiss.  Christopher also won the Team Racing Nationals last week.  Caterina sailed all top 15 scores to finished 34th overall and was also 8th at the Girls Nationals Championship.  2008 NJ State Champion Connor Swikart was 38th.  And our friend Matias Agnese accomplished his goal and qualified for the 2009 Team Trials!