Harwich High School Interscholastic Sailing Team

Welcome to the Harwich High Sailing Team Homepage. The Sailing Team is based at the Chatham Yacht Club on the shores of Pleasant Bay. This is one of the mildest spots on Cape Cod in the springtime and provides flat water and shifty sailing which add up to a perfect formula for developing top notch sailors.

The premier team went 4-1 on its 1998 season. This year we are full members of the New England Interscholastic Sailing Association and the Interscholastic Sailing Association. In addition to team races against regional schools, we will enter several large regattas - including the NESSA Fleet Championship and the NESSA Team Racing Championships. We will also seek invitation and attend the Massachusetts State Sailing Championship at MIT and compete at the premier Cape & Islands Invitational Championship Regatta.

Coach John Dickson, who received his training on Pleasant Bay and the Harvard Varsity Sailing Club, instills a sense of purpose to the team. Although he underscores the need for team members to have fun sailing first, the team is drilled heavily in the skill, adroitness, delicacy and diplomacy of team racing and fleet racing challenges. The challenge of short course one-design sailboat racing requires student crews to make quick strategic decisions in difficult and tight situations to be successful. High school sailing teams are extraordinary and we are proud to know that the Harwich School Administration recognizes the Harwich High Sailing Team as a natural for our unique Cape Cod Town .

....the Rough Rider Sailing Team is cool, sweet, awesome, co-ed, competitive, challenging....

The one-design International 420 is the boat used by the sailing team. We take pride in the fleet of six boats on loan from the Chatham Yacht Club.

Sailing practices are Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays from 2:30 PM until 5:30 PM at CYC. Students must provide their own transportation or gain parental permission to ride with other students who must be at least seventeen years of age. If practice is canceled due to weather, we will try to make it up on the Tuesday or Thursday of that week. Team practices are critical to the development of the team. It is important that you are committed to attending all practices and rescheduled practices. If you cannot make practice be sure to let Coach Dickson know.

Some competitions because of their invitational nature will limit the number of sailors each school may send to a given event. However, everyone will compete during the year.

Important Phone Numbers.

Coach John Dickson 432-7207(W) 945-9475(H)

Coach Tom Leach (Asst.), Harbormaster 430-7532(W) 432-0268(H)

Safety Patrol Boat VHF Channel 68

Tom Leach, Beeper 978-488-4593

Current wind velocity, direction and temperature on Pleasant Bay, East Harwich, MA.