Story and photo from Asbury Park Press, July 30,2008. (Photo by Shawn Huber/Asbury Park Press #42210)ISLAND HEIGHTS — Little cockleshell boats with snub noses are a familiar sight on Barnegat Bay, where they are often piloted by budding sailors who have not even been riding bicycles very long. But put an Optimist pram tiller in an aggressive hand, and it's a racer.
"It was challenging because the wind was very shifty. But I followed the shifts so I almost won the second race," Cally Tullo, 13, said as she and twin sister Holly wheeled their boats ashore at the end of this week's Junior Olympics sailing regatta on Barnegat Bay and the Toms River.
Some 350 young sailors from as far away as Maine and Puerto Rico competed this week in the annual Mid-Atlantic Junior Olympics Sailing Festival regatta on Barnegat Bay and the Toms River, concluding today with a series of events hosted by the Island Heights Yacht Club.
"People from here have gone on to the Olympics and college sailing," said Frank Parisi, a past commodore of the club. "You could call this the lifeblood of the sport."
"It started 26 years ago when Len Egee and Vicky Duff started it as a regatta to attract the better young sailors on Barnegat Bay," explained regatta co-chairman Buzz Reynolds. In 2000, organizers applied for and received sanction from U.S. Sailing, the national governing body for the sport and sailing Olympics in America, and now "it attracts a lot of the top junior sailors," Reynolds said.
In the final race for advanced Optimist pram sailors, Allyson Donahue of Brigantine crossed the finish line first, followed closely by Cally Tullo of Staten Island and Mantoloking.
Both 13-year-olds are members of the Long Beach Island Optimist Sailing Team and spend much of their summer on the competition trail, from the Optimist nationals at Patchogue, N.Y., last week to an international regatta next weekend in Kingston, Ontario. The Tullo twins and their LBI teammates placed high in the final scores, with LOST team members Scott Barbano and Connor Swikart in first and second place in the advanced "gold" class.
"It's really fun to sail (the Optimist) because it's really easy to rig," Tullo said. The Junior Olympics regatta is different from most of the season's Barnegat Bay events because of its sheer size, Donahue said.
"We just got back from the national championships in Long Island, and that was 400 boats," Donahue said. Like Tullo, one of her ambitions is to move up to the 420, a nearly 14-foot-long sailing dinghy: "It's faster because it's bigger and has two sails."
The 420 and the Laser Radial are two other classes featured in the Junior Olympics, with abundant trophies for all three classes in various age divisions, Reynolds said.
"Beyond the sailing we also teach sportsmanship," with the Egee and Duff Sportsmanship Trophy bestowed as a top honor, Reynolds said. The Martin Trophy, named for former Island Heights junior sailor Richie Martin, is awarded to the participating yacht club or sailing organization with the most first-, second- and third-place winners, he said. The top 10 sailors in each class and age division receive medals.
About 180 volunteers help run the event, from preparing food to finding accommodations for visiting sailors with local families, club members said. For two days the Island Heights riverfront was jammed with trucks and trailers. One Annapolis, Md., club showed up with several carloads of sailors and trailers full of boats. The most distant teams came from Bermuda and Puerto Rico, Reynolds said.
It is exciting for the volunteers because they feel they are nurturing sailing DNA in the next generation, and sailors bred on Barnegat Bay's traditions have gone onto great things, Parisi said.
Results: Club 420s, Laser Radial, Opti Gold, Opti Silver
