Mother Nature delivered near-perfect weather for TISC’s Big Team Regatta on Friday. PG&E set the pace while Goldman Sachs set a great example. Bishop Ranch, Hanson Bridgett and Recommind teams rounded out the generous teams who raised $30,000 for our youth programs.

BTR is the major Treasure Island Sailing Center fundraiser each year.  It’s made possible by the generous donation of facilities, boats and coaches from OCSC and the hard work of our TISC team plus many volunteers from Cal Sailing Team.

This regatta was the brainchild of Jay Palace at Group Experiential Learning.  It provides an opportunity for companies to give back to the sailing community by sponsoring four participants who expand their sailing skills and have fun while learning to work efficiently as a team on and off the water. And meet other like-minded sailing enthusiasts and youth sailing supporters!

PG&E entered two teams this year and lead both on the water, placing one – two, and off with a total donation of $10,000.  Goldman Sachs sponsored four junior sailors who represented TISC and accepted the donation made possible by all BTR participants.

Some of these junior sailors are new to TISC, some have been sailing with us over five years. They include junior instructors, office interns and an inventor creating a foiling Moth. They sail Optis and FJ’s.  All great kids learning life lessons while developing self-confidence in themselves as they help others

OCSC’s Club Manager Tim Han was the regatta PRO who delivered pre-race briefings, kept everyone on schedule and ran 5 exciting races with help from Christina Ha and Tracy Rogers. BTR sailors were on high learning curves thanks to their OCSC coaches Ashley, Bruce, David, Eric, Jim and Larry.

Racing was very clost at this year’s BTR.  The first race saw four boats cross the finishe line within seconds of each other.

Carisa Harris-Adamson, co-chairman of the TISC Foundation, reminded participants about the effectiveness of hands-on learning and highlighted our new Set Sail Learn program launched in partnership with ONESF: Celebrate the Cup.

Norbert Bajurin, commodore of Golden Gate Yacht Club and fresh from a dramatic ending to the 34th America’s Cup races,  provided a timely and topical keynote.  He spoke about the importance of junior sailing to our youth here in the Bay Area and worldwide, and the focus of GGYC and TISC programs high school and youth sailing programs.

A huge THANK YOU to this year’s participating companies for making Big Team Regatta 2013 a huge success.  As with all such great events we have many sponsors and volunteers to thank, and we’ll do so in a future blog.

Thanks, from On the Cove,

Dave G

In the wake:

I was fortunate to have Isabelle and Jorge, youth sailors from our FJ and Opti racing teams,  helping out on the photo boat.  They helped track the competitors and took some of the pictures available HERE.

A few additional pictures of the six racing team are below.