AN EVERGREEN INCUBATOR

In an era in which scholastic sports are all about medals and trophies, this high school sailing hive in the Pacific Northwest is putting its focus on community.

DAVE POWLISON

IN 2015, it looked as if the Olympia High School Sailing Team was history. Its numbers had dwindled to three active team members, and if that wasn’t enough, its longtime volunteer coach had recently passed away. Orion Bird, a sailor in the program of that era, recalls, “It really felt like the program was on the verge of dying.” ¶ Enter Sarah Hanavan, recently out of collegiate sailing at Western Washington University. She had moved to Olympia, Washington, and started volunteering with the team in the spring of 2015. That coming summer, she had planned to travel. ¶ “Before I left, one of the three team members, Elena Gonick, a junior, invited me to coffee,” Hanavan says. “She told me she had watched kids from other teams who, at the…

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Sailing World (Digital) - 1 Issue, Winter 2023

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