Dartmouth teens show their stuff

bveneri@hotmail.com

When Zack Kavanaugh of Dartmouth goes back to school this fall, he has a story to tell. It's about how the 15-year old Club 420 skipper decided to turn in his captain's hat to crew for somebody else.
What? Doesn't it usually go the other way? You crew for someone for a couple of years, then gradually work your way into the skipper's role, right?

Not necessarily. By chucking the top dog role to crew for veteran fleet racer David Siegal, also from Dartmouth, Zack experienced a sailing summer like no other.
"I learned more than I ever thought I could learn," he said, following the Dartmouth duo's 3rd place showing in the U.S. Sailing Junior Double National Championship, held Aug. 13-15 in San Francisco Bay hosted by the San Francisco Yacht Club in Sausalito, California.
Eighteen-year-old Siegal, heading into his senior year at Tabor Academy in Marion, thought Zack "was the best skipper in the New Bedford (Yacht Club) program" and recruited the younger boy to crew for him during his final summer of fleet racing on the Junior level.
An instructor at NBYC for the past two years, Siegal, saw an opportunity to help Zack grow as a racer. "Any good skipper is qualified to be good crew," he said.
To get to the nationals, Siegal and Kavanaugh placed 2nd at the Falmouth Regatta earlier this summer, out of 100 boats competing. Then, the pair placed first out of 24 boats in the Southern Massachusetts Sailing Association (SMSA) championships in mid-July at the Wianno Yacht Club on the Cape. That gave them the Nash Trophy.
In early August, they paired up for the Area A competition, pitting the 12 winners of regional competitions against each other for the New England championships at the Hingham Yacht Club.
Again, Siegal and Kavanaugh placed first, winning the Street Trophy and the chance to go to the nationals on the West Coast.
In Sausalito, they attended a clinic on Sunday, Aug. 12, then competed in four races Aug. 13, three Aug. 14 and three Aug. 15. Winds gusted up to 20 to 25 knots on the second day of competition, staying at 15 to 20 knots the rest of the time.
Siegal and Kavanaugh were among 20 teams, each of which had qualified by winning in one of 10 districts across the country, including teams from Hawaii, Florida, Texas and California. The team from Brant Beach Yacht Club in New Jersey won the Bemis Trophy, while the San Diego Yacht Club team placed 2nd.
A junior instructor at the NBYC, Kavanaugh decided to crew on a 420 this year to "learn and improve the skills that I have, and try to become a better sailor."
Did he accomplish this goal?
"Definitely," says the Dartmouth High School sophomore. "No doubt in my mind."
Skipper Siegal adds that Zack "really did a good job. He was able to adjust to being crew very quickly." What Siegal saw this summer was a Zack Kavanaugh who turned into "a better sailor" and who had a chance to get some "good experience" at the national level.
Both young men started out sailing 8-foot Optimist dinghies, competing with other Opti sailors at local yacht clubs, before they learned how to sail the faster Club 420s. Both predict they will be "lifetime sailors" and both think they would like to sail competitively on the college level.
A member of coach Warren Hathaway's DHS sailing team, Kavanaugh would like to see more fall sailing in the area.
"I would like to see them start some regattas in the fall," he said. "There aren't a lot (of regattas) around here, but down south there are."
Siegal wrapped up his summer sailing season this week as a coach in the Beverly Yacht Club's Junior Regatta. He may compete in a Laser regatta in Canada this fall, before hunkering down for the winter, applying to colleges and getting ready for his final season sailing at Tabor in the spring of 2002.
Siegal, younger son of Henry and Nancy Siegal of Dartmouth (who, incidentally, own a 25-foot powerboat) has nothing but praise for his parents.
"They haven't pushed me too far," he said, giving him "just the right amount of support to help me develop as a racer." His older brother Charlie was captain of the Tufts University sailing team and his sister Annie, a senior at Boston College, sails for the Eagles coed team.
Following his successful summer on the water, Kavanaugh plans to spend time looking forward to the start of practice in the spring, reading the new sailing rules and keeping up to date on changes in team and fleet racing.
He thinks he'll spend another couple of years racing Club 420s, then move to a more technical boat (such as the Laser).
Though his parents, Peter and Mary Kavanaugh, own a cruising sailboat -- a Pearson 36 -- Zack is noticeably lacking in enthusiasm for the laid-back cruising life. His older brother Peter is not a sailor, but his younger siblings, Hannah, 10, and Alex, 13, are involved in the NBYC program.
As for Zack, he'd rather be racing – whether as skipper or crew – because, as he said, "it's a blast."