Opti TV

The Upper Keys Sailing Club And The Buccaneer Blast September 29th, 2020 The Upper Keys Sailing Club is located on Buttonwood Sound in Key Largo Florida and is the parent club of the Mark Sorensen Youth Sailing Program and host to the Buccaneer Blast, the largest Opti regatta south of Miami. It's an idyllic setting for a very well attended local regatta, hosting teams from around Florida and on occasion international sailors from the Caribbean and North America.  The Buccaneer Blast The Buccaneer Blast is typically held at the end of February every year, hosted by the UKSC with the race courses on Buttonwood Sound. Racing is normally local to national level, with teams from some of the top Opti programs in the country, mostly from South Florida. The Fleet consists of 100-150 Championship and Green Fleet sailors, and in different years has hosted other classes such as the Laser, 420 and O'Pen Skiffs.  The Venue The UKSC is located on N Ocean Drive in Key Largo...

 Remember The Three C's: Calm, Cool, Collected AP. Postponement. It can be a tough time for sailors and maybe even more so their coaches, because it's switching off that competitive mode and it can be hard to maintain discipline when you're sitting around on land or out on the water waiting for improved conditions. Here's the latest video from us just on this very topic, featuring tips from Daniel and Omari. Key Takeaways: Stay Hydrated Keep an eye on changes in conditions that could help you formulate a plan Conserve your energy Things that could help you in those three areas is drinking plenty of water, not swimming around too much, finding some shade to keep you cool, and talk to your coach about changes in conditions or things that you see.  Listen to some music, chat with your friends, but don't forget what you're there for!

 Timing + Technique = Control! Welcome to Ask Coach! Where we take your questions on Tactics, Strategy, and Boathandling. In our first installment, let's cover the Lee Bow. This is aimed at beginning to intermediate level racers in order to let them formulate questions they can bring to their coach, so we've tried to incorporate appropriate explanations and language.  We think it's important to agree on the vocabulary coaches and sailors use, so as there are many different ways to explain the same thing - make sure you know the difference between Tactics and Strategy What Are Tactics? Out on the race course, you'll be faced with many situations where you have to make a decision, sometimes before you even get to the situation (ahem - *mark roundings*). These decisions are what we call tactics. You can think of tactics as the little steps you take in order to achieve your strategy of success.  What Is Strategy? Strategy is the overarching plan for the regatta, race or par...

The Roundup: Getting Into The Fall Cooler temperatures abound (for some) and the Atlantic hurricane season is coming to an end (we hope). So here's the latest monthly installment of The Roundup - where we round up our picks for news, education, and entertainment from around the world of sailing at large.  "CROSSINGS" ft. surfing stars Kai Lenny and J.J Florence John John Florence and co. are back for another sailing adventure out in the Pacific Blue, this time undertaking a 200 nautical mile, open water crossing on a Flying Phantom. Yep, Ocean sailing on an 18 foot foiling cat. What other reason do you need to watch? Sit back and enjoy a high-quality sailing production that's sure to raise the question: "When do we go to Hawaii?" The Smartest Ship That Ever Sailed Although it's not a sailboat, what you're looking at there is the smartest ship to ever sail. Fully autonomous, it borrows some technologies from recent developments in self-driving cars (r...

It's Not About The Boat, It's About You.  Navigating the waters post-Opti is sometimes quite the challenge because we, in Optiland, tend to get tunnel vision and only see the possibilities in sailing within the context of the Optimist class. In reality, the Optimist is the first step of many into a wide world of sailing that's out there.  Out of the many, many classes out there most of them will remain inaccessible to a fresh-out-of-the-class sailor who is transitioning from the Opti into another boat. There are many youth fleets out there and although the typical pathway is to jump into a 420, Laser or such there are no hard rules about what to do after the Opti. Here are some resources and words of advice we've put together for those who are eyeing the next steps already, whether they're reaching the age cutoff or are getting too big for the boat. Remember that because there are so many options out there, its not about the boat - its about the sailor and their kin...

 Smaller Fleets For 2020 Recently, the Coral Reef Yacht Club released an amendment to the 2020 OBYIR noting their plans for registration - so sailors! be aware that the Orange Bowl 2020 is O.N!  Event organizers have announced a cap on all the fleets:  50 Club 420s 70 Lasers (Standard, Radial and 4.7 combined)  70 Optimist (Red, Blue and White combined) 50 Optimist Green. They will be opening registration for the Opti Green and RWB on October 13th at 9 AM EST All other classes will open at 9 AM EST on the 12th October.  With the reduction in fleet sizes, we guarantee registration will fill up immediately, so plan accordingly! Full Press Release Below: Dear Sailors, Coaches and Parents:   The registration for our Orange Bowl International Youth Regatta opens in just a few short weeks on October 12 th .  We are very excited to welcome you back to our Club for what will surely be a most memorable regatta!  We have been planning fo...

  Good News, East Coast Opti sailors! The Notice of Race is now published for the Atlantic Coast Champs. Big change from last year's event-  There is a CAP of 150 boats . 50 will launch from Larchmont YC.  Registration will open for Larchmont YC sailors only on Friday, September 11 at 0900. Registration will open for all other sailors on Saturday, September 12 at 0900. Take a look at the Notice of Race below: 2020 Opti ACC NoR Event Website

What Lies Beneath  2020 has been an interesting year, to say the least, and we've somehow managed to launch a brand and youtube channel in this time. But as always, there's more to do and say - and this time its a subject that's particularly contemporary to our home waters of Miami - and that's plastic pollution. More and more we see that its having an adverse effect on our waters, and it's not limited to Miami! This is a global issue. We were i nspired by the World Sailing and IODA Sustainability Inititative, so we dove into the topic of plastic pollution in our waters in this episode and some things we can do to help fix the problem. Thanks to our friends at FOCUS Miami and our contributors for helping make this happen. We hope you enjoy the cool underwater sequences and if you like this episode, make sure to show it to your sailor(s). It's a topic we can't afford to ignore. Check out the full Sustainability Topic 4 - Reducing Waste below: http://www.opti...