Clemson Tigers Big Race

We are the Clemson University Sailing Team and we're racing again in Charleston Race Week (CRW) 2015. Clemson University has had a sailing team for 51 years but it was only last year we decided to race in the biggest keel boat regatta in the western hemisphere; and were back to do it again this year. Charleston Race Week has grown from a local summertime regatta, started in 1996, to a world renown and internationally sailed regatta now in 2015. People from as far as the West Coast, Canada, England and Dubai with ranging abilities such as college students, like ourselves, and a few olympic sailors in one or two boats sail in this regatta bringing everyone together in a fun and extreme sport located in one of the best cities in the world.
Last year we struggled to get to CRW as we are five college students trying to rebuild and clean up an old boat that was donated to the sailing team two years ago all while being full time Clemson University Students. We spent many hours after school every day for months replacing hardware, stripping out excess weight, cleaning the hull and patching sails, making the boat race ready. We will be sailing our orange and black tiger striped J24 ,named Bounce, for a second time, giving her a second shot to carry us to a new kind of racing for Clemson Sailing. Our crew of five undergrads have varying experience and abilities on the boat. Mateo Gomez , 19, is a Mechanical Engineer with a year and a half racing experience on foredeck. Dale strong, 22, is a Bioengineer with 11 years of keel boat racing experience and will be team tactician. Nolan Bagnal, 19, is a grinder and another Bioengineer and has 3 years of keel boat racing experience. Hugh Forester-Bennett, 20, is Mechanical Engineering with 8 years racing experience and will be our crews pitman. Finally, Jack Roberts, 19, a Finance and Accounting major with 9 years keelboat experience will be skippering the boat this year.
This is our team for CRW and we are asking for your support to help five college students take part in in a passion we cherish and a sport we love. This push to race is funded by family and friends and the support from others to give us a chance to expand our horizons. We are asking for donations to help us raise money for new hardware, better sails and team gear. Your support is much appreciated and we will do our best this year in April as a thank you. We hope to see you April 16-19, and every year after, supporting the Clemson Tigers in our tiger striped J24. Thank you for your support.

Go Tigers!!