For the past two months, Nueva’s sailing club had been practicing out of a protected marina, contained in one of the many shallow marshy channels that thread through the southern margins of the San Francisco Bay. Now, in the culminating regatta of their fall season, they were thrust into the uneven winds and deeper waters of the Oakland Estuary, vying to outmaneuver and overtake 33 other boats and finish first. The San Francisco Bay covers 1,600 square miles, but for the next five hours of races, these three miles were all that mattered.
Each crew of two sailors are snugly fit in a 13-by-5 foot sailboat. Their coordination, swift decisions, and constant awareness will be what decides this race.
At the Nov. 2, 2025 regatta, the club achieved their best-ever result. Max K. ’26 and Maya S. ’28 got a second-place finish, while Agata I. ’26 and Nate S. ’29 finished 16th, in the middle of the pack.
Fall was a growth season for the club, having expanded their roster to nine regular sailors.
“We had the problem where we no longer could fit everybody in one car for carpooling, which is a great problem to have,” Agata said.
Max co-founded the club in 2022 with Sasha Gordon ’24 and Adam Kan ’24. The three had been sailing at Peninsula Youth Sailing Foundation—a program at Redwood City Yacht Club—before they began competing under the Nueva name.
The group practices two days a week in partnership with PYSF’s high school sailing program, which works with 14 other Bay Area schools. They begin by drilling the basic techniques of boathandling, before running exercises pertaining to race strategy.
“We need to know, how do you judge a course? How do you know where to sail and when? How can you be competitive on the starting line?” Max said.
For some in the club, sailing has been a lifelong activity. Max first learned the ropes from his grandfather on a lake in Connecticut.
“I then spent elementary school unlearning all the bad habits he had taught me, and I’ve been sailing ever since,” Max said.
Others, like Agata, came into the club with no prior experience. Willow H. ’27 joined the team last year, inspired by people she knew in the club and a general interest in sailing.
“Instead of starting as a game like many other sports, it started as a skill set and then evolved into a game,” Willow said. “It feels at once very unique and interesting, but it also feels very applicable.”
But while the water they practice on is flat, the learning curve is steep.
“I like to compare it to driving a car,” Max said. “There are so many things you need to keep track of in your head, and it’s really overwhelming. Then one day it clicks, and you have no idea why, but you’re all of a sudden doing 80% of the things you need to do unconsciously.”
The team’s spring season began on Jan. 27, and will continue through May 3. Max anticipates the team will attend at least two regattas this semester.
This semester, maintaining the fall season’s team spirit will be key.
“The fall season went well in terms of community and the team as a whole,” Jane J. ’29 said. “Our motivation to just get out on the water and focus on improving our skills for that three or four hours was really important.”
Another primary goal for the spring is to strengthen the club’s relationship with Nueva Athletics. As a club rather than an official sport, the sailors have to pay out-of-pocket for access to PYSF’s boats and coaching, which costs $1,500 a season.
Max and Agata hope to arrange for Nueva students on financial assistance to automatically qualify for a need-based scholarship offered by PYSF that covers the full cost of sailing, as is the case for other PYSF partner programs.
“We’re very hopeful that this is something we can do this year, as one parting gift to the team before we graduate,” Max said. “For years on, I hope this continues to be an opportunity where people join the school and go: ‘I can learn sailing here?’”
