About SAISA:

SAISA is the South Atlantic Interscholastic Sailing Association, which is part of Interscholastic Sailing Assocation (ISSA), the organizing authority for high school sailing in the US. SAISA organizes high school level regatta in NC, TN, SC, GA, and FL, and is the governing body for the events that we participate in in the fall and early spring. These are the "team"-based events, raced in 420's, and currently are the main events in which we participate. The regattas are broken up by district (we are in the "North Points" district). Each team is composed of sailors from a single school, and each regatta has two divisions (A and B), in which a team may race; thus a team normally consists optimally of 4 sailors from one school. There are specific rules that provide for exceptions to this if a team does not have enough sailors at a regatta; however advancement to the next level is limited (see below).

SAISA provides for different levels of advancement. First, races are held at the local level (e.g., North Points Regattas) during the fall. Teams accumulate points from this series according to their finish positions - a first finish results in 8 points, a second in 7, and so on. Teams with sailing as a “composite”  A / B division team from two or more schools, teams participating in divisional cross-over events (e.g., sailing in an coastal event) or teams that do not finish the regatta receive 0.5 points, regardless of their finish positions. Thus there is strong incentive to encourage team participation, with teams that are formed from a single school with a minimum of 4 sailors attending most events. Teams with the highest number of points go on to the NP Gold and Silver Regattas. North Points Gold (held in March) is for the top 8 teams qualifying with the highest number of points; North Points Silver (also held in March) is for the next tier of teams. At these regattas, all sailors on a team must be from a single school. The next level is the District Championship, and the top level is the National Championships (Great Oaks Invitational Regatta, the National Cressy, Mallory or Baker Regattas; note some of these are for single-handed (e.g., Laser) sailing only).

SAISA Rules and related links:

About SAYRA:

SAYRA is the South Atlantic Yacht Racing Association, which is which is a larger organizing body for the individual clubs in the south Atlantic area. This group recognizes a number of club-based Junior events in throughout the year, and keeps track of results to put together the "SAYRA Junior Series". Unlike the SAISA series, these are not team-based but individual or club-based, and include 420's, Lasers, Sunfish, and Optis.

The SAYRA Juniors page has the schedule and results. Keep an eye out for this set of events. In particular, RTP High School Sailing members participated in this series last year ('06-07) in 420's and Lasers, mostly in the "off-season" from SAISA. We hope to see more participation this year to help hone skills and bring in more sailors to our group!