The Tribune

AFTER returning since it was postponed in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, 12-year-old Finley McKinney Lambert clinched the Optimist National Championship title in the waters of Montagu Bay.

Lambert, who has been sailing since he was just four years old, currently resides in Eleuthera. He sails with the Eleuthera Sailing Academy. His first big accomplishment in a major event was achieving first place in the Green Fleet in the 2017 Optimist Nationals at the age of seven.

Lambert has since sailed competitively at most of the major events held in The Bahamas and has represented The Bahamas internationally many times in Canada, the USA, Mexico and Italy at World Championship level.

Last weekend’s event was hosted by the Royal Nassau Sailing Club in conjunction with the Bahamas National Sailing School with the action on the water taking place in Montague Bay.

The optimist boat is the most popular youth boat in the world, as it is universally considered the top trainer boat for the majority of other youth boat classes. The sailors range in age from 8-15 years old and are divided into several fleets dependent on age and experience.

The event was attended by sailors from 6 Bahamas Islands, including Abaco, Exuma, Eleuthera, Harbour Island Grand Bahama and New Providence and, as it is an “open” event, we were also joined by over 20 young sailors, accompanied by family and coaches, from several corners of the USA as part of the initiative USODA (United States Optimist Development Authority).

Sailors also came from Cayman and Turks and Caicos to swell the participant list to around 80 boats.

The weather on Saturday was incredibly windy. The race committee monitored the situation throughout the day, but with well over 20 knots of breeze, it was decided to postpone racing until the following day. Sunday brought a respectable 12-14 knots with lulls of around 6 knots, making far more favorable conditions for the young sailors.

The race committee managed to coordinate six races that day, leaving everyone cold and tired, but feeling accomplished.

The Green Fleet of boats comprises the sailors with less than a year’s sailing experience and was won by Michael Knowles of the Nassau Yacht Club (NYC) and the Bahamas National Sailing School (BNSS), second was Aiden Meister (NYC) and third Travon Davis of Harbour Island Sailing Club.

In the White fleet (ages 10 and under) Aiden O’Gwen (USA) came first, Grant Chin (USA) second and Kingston Peel of Lyford Cay (LCSC) was third.

The Blue fleet (ages 11-12) was won by Ian Farley (USA), second Finley McKinney Lambert (Eleuthera), third Kaemen Floyd (USA).

The Red fleet (ages 13-15) was won by Kyle Nguyen (USA), second Pierce Weber (USA) and third Zane Munro (Lyford Cay). The top placed sailors in each fleet received trophies.

Special trophies also went to the top female sailor Katlia Sherman (USA) and to Craig Ferguson of the Nassau Yacht Club who received the well deserved Sportsmanship Award. “This is an annual award and is decided by vote from all the junior sailors,” the committee said. “We congratulate Ian Farley of Lauderdale Yacht Club for his first place overall in the championship.”

Bahamian overall top places were Patrick Tomlinson (Lyford Cay) in third, Zane Munro (Lyford Cay) in second and Finley McKinney Lambert (Eleuthera) in first.

Finley was awarded the prestigious Geoffrey Holowesko perpetual trophy and is the new national champion.

As the BSA and NSS are non-profit organisations, we extend our tremendous appreciation to our numerous corporate sponsors without whom the championship would have not been possible. They are: RF Group, Caribbean Bottling, Home Fabrics, Subway Restaurants, Super Value and Quality Supermarkets and Abaco Big Bird. “We also extend a huge thank you to North Sails who presented a beautiful brand new Optimist sail to each of the visiting Family Island sailing clubs,” the committee further said.

Thanks also goes to the numerous coaches, parents and volunteers who assisted on the race committee and off the water and to The Royal Nassau Sailing Club for hosting the event. “Though COVIDprotocols had to be kept in place, it was a joy to see so many join us from our Family Islands and abroad,” the committee said. “Many old friendships were rekindled and new ones made after the past couple of years when our sailing events have been unable to take place.”

The next scheduled major event will be the annual KPMG Winter Championship February 19-20th and the 2022 Optimist Nationals are due to take place October 1st-2nd, both in Nassau.