Seabrook, TX:
Lakewood's youth sailors competed at the
73rd Gulf Yachting Association's Junior Lipton Challenge
hosted by Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans July 20-22, where they managed a fourth-place finish just seven points out of first.
The Junior Lipton Cup is sailed by youths eighteen and under in a six-race series with each skipper limited to driving in two races. This was the first year that the LYC kids sailed Viper 640s instead of Flying Scotts.
Sailing in this regatta for the first time, the LYC team of Dutch Byerly, Stephen Helm, Cade Morrell, Matthew Morrell, Asher Zittrer and Noah Zittrer did well, racing fierce competition against nine other teams
on Lake Pontchartrain
in winds up to 18-20 knots.
The kids brought home two first-place trophies and a third-place. Additionally, Asher Zittrer skippered his crew of four to a win for the bullet in the last race of the series to earn the coveted Uncle Roy trophy, named after Roy A. Troendle, Sr., a perpetual trophy that will hang in the LYC Clubhouse for the next year.
Lakewood offers its thanks to Pass Christian Yacht Club for chartering the boat to our kids, is grateful for the training that Olympian John Dane provided the two days before the race and applauds Southern Yacht Club for hosting such a enjoyable, top-notch regatta.
The Gulf Yachting Association has been around since 1901, was reorganized in 1920 and raced its first Lipton Cup in 1941. GYA's original six clubs has grown to more than 30.
