Lauderdale Yacht Club prides itself in its High School Program, and the main goal of the LYC Sailing Program is to provide their athletes with the knowledge and opportunity to attend the colleges of their dreams. LYC’s High School Sailing Program has been a perennial top-ranked program. The High School Race Team consists of two high schools, St. Thomas Aquinas and Pine Crest School. These high schools are two leaders in Florida for academics and athletics.
LYC is proud to welcome back Sophia Reineke as the High School Head Coach. Sophia is a recent graduate of Boston College and in her senior year she was named Women’s College Sailor of the Year winning the Women’s Fleet Race National Championship as well as the Women’s Singlehanded National Championships twice in college. She has also earned championships in multiple team racing events and was the High School Singlehanded Champion, Laser US Champion, also placing fourth at Youth Worlds in the Laser. Sophia was also a Team Captain on her high school (St. Thomas Aquinas) and college teams. She brings a tremendous amount of leadership to the High School Team! Sophia is joined by Alexander Van Puffelin to coach LYC’s High School Teams.
Top colleges LYC sailors have recently graduated to include Stanford, Brown, Tulane, Dartmouth, George Washington, Georgetown, Boston University, Boston College, College of Charleston, Merchant Marine Academy, College of Charleston, SUNY Maritime, Fordham and U.S. Coast Guard Academy just to name a few.
High School sailing runs the entire school year and consists of eight divisional regattas called South Points where sailors from many regional high schools battle each other. There are also opportunities to be invited to invitational regattas and to qualify for regional and national events on the way to a national championship!