Photos & Season Preview: Sailing Team Takes The Water
David Creed •
The Nantucket sailing team hoped to get out on the water last Friday but due to the weather, had to wait a few extra days to finally sail on Monday. The team has been in the water all week and has strong leadership with captains Sadie Paterson, Clementine Kelly, Jacob Heneke, and Baer O’Banion leading the way with head coach Bruce Turner entering his fourth season as the program’s head coach. Turner said he likes this group and is excited for the year ahead.
“These kids have all been huge contributors to this team and their teammates respond well to them,” Turner said. “They’re good kids. They’re strong kids. It is fun seeing them grow from year to year."
Turner said the numbers for this year’s team are strong with 18 sailors. The program continues to hold their own and go toe to toe with some of the Cape & Island’s best, but will also be adding some additional regattas to their schedule including their first race of the year on Sunday, March 29th, when the Whalers are scheduled to travel to Wellesley for a regatta against Winchester, Marblehead, and Wellesley High School.
"We are going to do a couple more off-island regattas," Turner said. "There is this trophy, it's part of NESSA (New England Schools Sailing Association) team racing called the Terks. If you get a certain ranking, you can be in the race. You have to have a certain number of regattas that you sail outside of your league by a certain date. So we're going to play that. So we're going to Wellesley or Natick, technically, on Sunday, and then a week plus we're going to go to Tabor and sail three other teams from there, one of them is from Maine, so you get some out of league stuff.”
Turner admitted replacing Rory Murray, a senior captain last year, will be difficult because of his leadership and his sailing ability but believes his team will step up to fill the void.
“The numbers are really good and I am encouraged about that, but Rory graduated which creates a hole, but when holes open up, people step up to fill them in,” Turner said. “That is what is going to have to happen. I think we are in good shape. I think we are a lot deeper. We have Shane Fox; he is a junior. He has turned into an awesome sailor. We have an eighth grader Lukas (Miskinis), he is going to be a rock star. Ed Holland is going to drive, and then we just have a lot of really good people. We have the Noddin sisters, Leila and Sasha, Sammy (Nielsen). We have Robert Graves returning. We have a bunch of good kids and sailors.”
Nantucket will head to Wellesley for that out of league race on Sunday at 12 p.m. and will then host St. John Paul II High School on Tuesday, March 31st at 3:30 p.m. You can view the full sailing schedule here.
Below are some more drone photos taken by Chris Tran and some photos on the ground by Annie Backus.
