Coronado High School’s Sailing Team (CHSST) placed third at the 2024 Pacific Gold Championship on Mission Bay, May 5th, closing out a successful season in which they were just shy of qualifying for nationals. In his first season as Head Coach, Crew Fritsch, a Coronado High School Class of ’19 alumni, was extremely pleased with the team’s performance.
“I am proud of the incredible improvement that the team underwent throughout the year. We started off the year with a 10th and ended the year with a 3rd overall at PCCs, the best placement by CHSST since the 2011-2012 season, in what essentially everyone considers to be the hardest sailing association in the U.S.” Crew said. “Also, it is amazing what the sailors were able to achieve with practices only being once a week and the team being so small. The top teams practice three times a week and many have more than twice the number of sailors. I believe this is a testament to the commitment and drive of the sailors as well as the quality of the Coronado Yacht Club junior sailing program. I had a blast coaching the team this year and I am glad we got to end the year with a phenomenal finish!”
The team that placed third was comprised of Skippers Tommy Rudowicz and Kevin Cason with the crew of Quinn Riebe, Cailey Song and Trey Gregory.
Their Coach, Crew Fritsch, grew up sailing with his grandparents who were members of Coronado Yacht Club (CYC) and shared that some of his earliest memories were of sailing with his family at the CYC “beer can” races on Wednesday nights. He spent summers with the CYC summer sailing program and has sailed competitively since a young age. Crew began coaching junior sailors at the age of 16 and when Jill Powell reached out to him about coaching high school he thought it would be a great way to spend his year off before pursuing his career. Crew graduated from MIT with a B.S. in Physics in May of 2023 and has been coaching CHSST for almost a year.
CHSST has a number of accomplished Sailors led by 2011 CHS grad Hans Henken who will represent Team USA in the Paris Olympics this summer. Owen Schafer, class of 2017 went on to Sail at Harvard, and the current coach Crew Fritsch sailed for MIT. Mercy Tangredi and Sophia Shaeffer of the class of 2021 both sail for University of Hawaii and made it to the National Championship competition their freshman year.
CHSST is a club sport and part of the Interscholastic Sailing Association and the Pacific Coast Interscholastic Sailing Association. The team is limited to 24 members but this year it had only 12 members making the team small but mighty compared to many other teams they compete against. The sailing season began in late August and ends in May with five regattas that count toward the overall rankings. Coronado completed the season ranked 4th among 71 teams competing on the Pacific Coast. The top three teams move on to the National Championships.
