St. Stanislaus wins State Sailing Championships

BAY ST. LOUIS -- St. Stanislaus won the Mississippi High School Fleet Racing Championship Regatta on Sunday at the Bay-Waveland Yacht Club.

SSC competed with Pass Christian, Gulfport, Long Beach, St Patrick, Ocean Springs and Fairhope (Ala.) for the two-day regatta that started Saturday. The regatta was open to kids in grades 7-12.

"We had approximately 50 kids from seven different school enter the race this year," race committee chairman Dan Zwerg said. "The furthest school was from Fairhope. We had 14 races with three classes in each race. The weather was pretty rough on Saturday but all of the boats held up and we had a really good day of racing on Sunday."

According to Principal Race Officer Clint Edwards, eight of the 14 races were conducted on Saturday and the final six were held Sunday.

"We had two fleets of 420s, an A and a B fleet," Edwards said. "They sailed two races and then swap boats. Everyone had a chance to sail everyone else's boat twice.

Edwards was pleased with the regatta turnout.

"I was glad to see the amount of young people that raced in the regatta," Edwards said. "I had two kids out there and I had some friends who had kids out there. It's exciting to see and I enjoyed being a part of it."

In the state championship division, SSC finished first with 85 points. Gulfport was second and Ocean Springs third.

In the A Fleet division, Fairhope finished first, but the school was not allowed to place in the state championship division.

SSC finished in first place in the B Fleet and C Fleet (laser) classes. Boyd Housey, 16, of SSC was the skipper of the winning laser.

"It was very windy on Saturday but it was a little better on Sunday," Housey said. "I won 13 of my 14 races. This was a fun race and I look forward to competing in it again next year."

This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 6:06 PM with the headline "St. Stanislaus wins State Sailing Championships ."