17th Eastern Seaboard Regatta, Thailand – Alex
With 144 youth sailors representing 11 countries, the 17th Eastern Seaboard Regatta kicked off at the Royal Varuna Yacht Club in Pattaya, Thailand. The event is one of the region’s premier youth events and coincides with the start of the Thai regatta season.
I was excited to be offered the opportunity to represent Australia as part of the Australian Optimist Development Squad (AODS) following the Australian Optimist National Championships last January.
In preparation for the event, I attended an AODS training camp in Adelaide over winter, where I met and made friends with the rest of team Australia, and learned a lot under the expert guidance of the AODS coaches – our very own Western Australian dual Olympian Nia Jerwood, and Harry Higgins from South Australia.
Nia was our coach for the Eastern Seaboard Regatta and is also the Team WA Head Coach for the 2026 National Australian Optimist Championships.
We arrived in Thailand a few days ahead of the event to spend a couple of days training to get used to the local environment and sailing conditions, which were very different from anything we experience back home.
My goal for the regatta was to learn as much as possible about adapting to unfamiliar sailing conditions in a different part of the world, to reconnect with the rest of the AODS team and to make new friends.
With 82 Optimists registered, the race committee opted to maintain one fleet for the regatta, so the start line was massive, and really tricky to judge, particularly with ocean swell, oscillating breeze and a very strong current.
I learned a lot about sailing in strong currents at this event, unfortunately I misjudged the current effect a couple of times on the first day, which caught me out at the top mark and resulted in me slipping back in the fleet, despite a strong start.It was a mistake I was determined not to repeat for the remainder of the regatta, and I succeeded in that goal.
One of the highlights of the regatta was when I noticed a significant start line bias while observing the ILCA fleet race start and decided to go for a pin end port flyer – I went for it and managed to cross almost the entire fleet on port tack – it was an epic feeling!
Overall it was a fantastic experience that I’m immensely grateful to have been part of and the comradery between Team Aus was awesome. Thank you to WAIODA and everyone who has supported me on this journey.
