Cape Elizabeth senior Cooper Siepert is something of an ace at a sport that doesn’t receive nearly its fair share of coverage: sailing.
Siepert took part in the Interscholastic Sailing Association’s Cressy Singlehanded National Championship at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., on the weekend stretching from October into November, finishing 12th in the full rig division.
“Being able to race at Nationals was awesome,” Siepert says of the opportunity, which he earned by placing top-three at a regional regatta in Wickford, R.I., in early October.
The Interscholastic Sailing Association (ISSA) is the governing body for high school sailing in the United States; it oversees seven different districts, including the New England Schools Sailing Association (NESSA).
Siepert sails a type of dinghy called a “laser,” roughly 14 feet long and 135 pounds, that has to conform to strict design rules, meaning all lasers are essentially identical regardless of when they were made. This emphasizes the sailor’s skill, not his or her equipment.
“Singlehanded” means Cooper’s the only person on-board his boat, and “full-rig” contrasts with “radial”: They’re exactly the same boat, but the former features a taller mast and a bigger sail. Likewise, full-rig sailors usually weigh 165 pounds or more, whereas radial sailors typically come in under that.
The entire Siepert family sails, especially Mike, Cooper’s father, and Evan, his older brother. Cooper took up the sport at the age of 8, when, he says, “my parents put me into a sailing program at Centerboard Yacht Club in South Portland. It was meant to be a summer camp, so I wasn’t sitting at home during vacation, but it turned into much more.”
After sailing with Centerboard for a year, Siepert joined the Portland Yacht Club in Falmouth. Nowadays, he’s also a member of SailMaine.
Siepert wasn’t always overly fond of sailing; in fact, he was initially turned off by the experience. “For the first couple years,” he says, “I was deathly afraid of being on a sailboat, and I hated it.”
He was interested in other sports at the time: “I was in love with soccer and lacrosse,” he says. “But that faded quickly as I overcame my fear of the sailboat and began to have a new passion.”
Mike Siepert is one of a number of coaches Cooper has had in the past decade-plus. He recalls his son’s trepidation: “When he was young, on windy, rainy days, he would sit in the car and not want to go out sailing with his team. Now he loves wind; the more wind the better.”
“Two summers ago at [a race] in Canada, it was blowing gale,” Mike says by way of example, “and when we would pull up to him between races, he was always ear-to-ear grin. Many of the other competitors retired after one race that day.”
Cooper competed at Nationals on both Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, completing a total of 12 races. He had some struggles early, but soon got a sense of the competition. “I didn’t know what to expect in the beginning of the day,” he says. “But after racing, I was able to get a feel for how the fleet was, competitively, and I started to push myself to the best of my ability.”
Siepert’s competitors came, of course, from across the country: from Michigan, from California, from elsewhere. Eighteen athletes participated in the full rig division; Paul Didham, a senior at Point Loma in San Diego, won the event, scoring 50 points over the course of a dozen races. Siepert, in the middle of the pack, scored 120.
Scoring is done on a low-point system: first-place finishers get one point, fifth-place finishers get five, and so on. The lowest cumulative score wins.
Siepert felt a little nervous at Nationals – at first anyway – because, as he says, “I’d never sailed against these kids and I wasn’t sure what to expect.” But he’s raced in other events at that level before, and eventually settled down.
This past weekend, Siepert raced with other members of the Cape Elizabeth High School team – Tucker Wanzer, Greg Corsello, Patrick Miller and head coach Jamie Carlson – at the Atlantic Coast Championship at the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club in Norfolk, Va. Cape placed fifth of 18 teams at the regatta.
Next up, Siepert will spend some time training in Trinidad. He’ll venture south on Nov. 23 and return on the 30th. Why Trinidad? “It’s started to become really cold,” he says, “and we’re losing light, so it’s hard to have a full practice while having to take breaks to warm up before we run out of time.”
Moreover, Siepert says, “our trainer, Andrew Lewis, is the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Laser Sailor.” Oh, and then there’s the warm climate: “It’s Trinidad. Who wouldn’t want to spend vacation in the warm tropics, escaping the cold winter?”
In late December, Siepert will enter the Orange Bowl Regatta in Miami. That competition falls outside the high school season; like many athletes in other sports, Siepert’s pretty devoted to his primary passion, and works at it through much of the year.
Siepert graduates in June, and hopes to sail at college. “Sailing’s become a huge passion for me and I need to be able to keep sailing and become the best I can possibly become.”
Cooper Siepert practices a “rolling gybe” while waiting for the wind to fill in.
Cooper Siepert, right, relaxes with training partner Caleb Robinson of Falmouth after their first day of racing. Robinson finished ninth in the radial division.
Cooper Siepert gets rigged and ready for the second day of racing at the Cressy Regatta.
The Cape Elizabeth sailing team poses on their recent trip to the Atlantic Coast Championship. Tucker Wanzer is at left; Cooper Siepert is center-back, Patrick Miller is center-front, and Greg Corsello is at right.
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