Minnetonka High School Team Sailing To Championships
LAKE MINNETONKA, Minn. (WCCO) -- It's not the typical high school sport but on the waters of Lake Minnetonka, Minnetonka High School sailing team was getting ready to compete in this weekend's Mallory National High School sailing championships in Texas.
"It's just fun to be out on the lake because not a lot of sports get to be outside and sometimes it's not very nice but most of the time it's nice to be out on the lake after school, just hang out with your friends out on the lake. It's a really good deal," said Minnetonka Sophomore Madde Loosbrock.
The "deal" for these high school athletes is practicing four days a week on Lake Minnetonka, once the ice is out.
"Each day we get to the island we got to rig our boats so we go get our sails out of the boat house ... you gotta know a lot of knots, what each line does on the boat," said Minnetonka Junior Connor Corgard. "There's probably up to 30 or 40 lines that are a piece of rope that do something different each time."
They are 65 sailors competing in the co-ed sport with the majority coming from Minnetonka High School but Blake, Breck and International School are also represented.
To create "smooth sailing," the skipper and crew need to be on the same page and work together as a team.
Minnetonka qualified for the high school national championships in Austin, Texas this weekend. The Skippers are happy to be making the trip south despite not having the best weather to train in this spring.
"It's great just to be able to qualify and it's really nice that we didn't have a lot of practice time. So they really had one week of practice on the water and most of the lake was still frozen," said Minnetonka Co-Sailing Coach Mark Dunsworth.
Like any sport, there is a bit of rivalry involved but it's more on the regional level with sailing.
"The California kids that really like to brag about that because they get to sail six days a week the entire year so they're known for being a little full of themselves for that. For us it's just doing the best we can with what we have. If we beat them, he it's the Midwest kids who beat the Cali kids and they never like that," said Minnetonka Senior Johnathan Ricks.
