News

Fall 2020 – Figaros Sailing!

Recent News:
– New COSC Board Members: Brad Dellenbaugh & Peter Garcia
– Fall 2020 – 4 Figaro 2s Sailing
– Toward Spring & Summer 2021
– Zoom Presentations: Bates College Sailing Team


New COSC Board Member – Brad Dellenbaugh

Brad has been Offshore Sailing Coach at the U.S. Naval Academy and the Sailing Director of the New York Yacht Club. His comprehensive knowledge of our sport will help COSC greatly to advance. We’re happy to have Brad’s wealth of experience aboard with us – see more of Brad’s bio here…


New COSC Board Member – Peter Garcia

Peter is currently Bates College Sailing Coach which will help us as we extend our fleet into private colleges. Furthermore, he has extensive offshore experience, as well as, by his professional legal career, knowledge of maritime regulations. We’re happy to have him aboard – see more of Peter’s bio here…


Summer & Fall 2020 – Figaro 2s Are Sailing!

In February of 2020, after deploying six of its Figaro 2s to four schools in the fall of 2019, COSC was looking forward to an active spring with training and competition scheduled in both COSC only races and in a number of regional “open” events like the Edlu and Block Island Races. Sadly, in the spring all our collegians were sent home and this fall campus and team restrictions have constrained sailing significantly.

One bright spot has been Western Long Island Sound where the Webb Sailing Team in cooperation with North East Keelboat Alliance (NEKA) has been putting SMUKOs (Student Miles Under the Keel Offshore) on the board.

Figaro 2s, with Webb Students aboard, in Gearbuster Race

Due to COVID restrictions the Figaro sailing in the windy Ida Lewis Race and the Vineyard was double-handed. While the “DH” format is not our core COSC mission, interest in short-handed sailing has been keen, spurred both the pandemic and by the new mixed-gender DH distance event for the 2024 Olympic games in France. More importantly it was great to get some young sailors out on the water in what were two challenging races. As the fall progressed the Kings Point Sailing team got their Figaro into action for the American and Manhasset Bay Fall Series. The SUNY “Privateers” are not yet permitted to compete but have their boat in the water and are training. All up the SMUKOs count for 2020 stands at close to 1,700.


Toward Spring & Summer 2021

Conditions for this coming spring and summer are yet to unfold but COSC and its partners are actively planning on how best to fully utilize the fleet.

In addition to our 6 currently deployed Figaro 2s (Mass. Maritime – 2, Webb Institute – 2, SUNY Maritime – 1, USMMA – 1) COSC believes that we will have 4 more boats deployed at colleges (including two non-academy private colleges) either Spring or Fall 2021 north of Cape Cod.

Plus, depending on progress with COVID-19, we have had great interest from 3 community sailing programs to sail our Figaros for 5-week Junior Offshore Training Programs in the summer. These programs would directly address our mission of expanding the pool of offshore capable mariners, and would hopefully incite young sailors interest toward an offshore sailing future.

All mileage on delivery voyages, from home ports to regattas and back, count toward the famed SMUKOs Trophy (Student Miles Under the Keel Offshore).


Zoom Presentation to Bates Sailing Team

Following on to our pre-Covid in-person presentations to SailMaine, and to the Harvard and Tufts sailing teams, we morphed these presentations into a COVID-era Zoom presentation to the Bates College sailing team. This worked well, and presages an opportunity to do the same for other interested community sailing programs and college sailing teams.

Our new Board member, and Coach of Bates Sailing, Peter Garcia, introduced Rich Wilson, President of COSC, who gave a 60 minute evening presentation (30 minutes Vendee Globe 2016-17, 20 minutes COSC Figaro 2 opportunities, 10 minutes Q&A), to show the sailors (most of whom are dinghy sailors with no offshore experience) the exciting opportunities of learning and adventure available in going offshore. The reception by the team was terrific and we hope that when sailing gets closer back to normal, that we will have Bates participating with the Figaros.

COSC offers these presentations to other college teams. Contact us at info@cosc-usa.org .

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