1 minute read
and Finishes Optimist Shark Coach
from Ahoy! June 2021
by Koko Mueller
WORDS: JONO RANKINE | IMAGES: ANOUSKA MUTREJA AND RHKYC
manuel, or Pato, as he is known to everyone as originally comes from Argentina and started with us in August last year. His nickname translates from Spanish to the word ‘duck’, which friends and family gave him due to the amount of time he spends on the water.
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Starting his Optimist sailing career at the age of 4, before a lot of us knew what a sailing dinghy was, Pato quickly fell in love with the sport and progressed through the highly competitive Argentinian Optimist racing scene. Due to Pato’s birthday being at the end of December it meant he effective aged out of the Optimist a year early. This combined with the fact that his club didn’t have a coach at the time gave Pato the opportunity to coach the team he had been sailing with at a very early age. A few years later, Pato was the head Laser and Optimist coach at Club Nautico Parana Argentina, and his coaching career was well and truly launched.
Over the years Pato has accumulated a lot of experience as head coach at several Optimist World Championships, South American Championships, Oceania Championships as well as a number of National Championships in USA, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong. His sailors have won numerous Optimist National titles, Optimist Team Racing Nationals titles as well as credible results in a host of other national and world championship regattas he has coached at in various classes of boats. Pato is the coach of our Performance Optimist Team, who are 10 sailors selected by him. Selection for this team is based on regatta results, attitude, and commitment to the team. Pato also manages our Development Optimist team, which will often train alongside the performance team as well as our Gold Squad. Gold Squad is a team who has just come from sail training and who are learning to race and competing in Green Fleet Optimist events.
We all have our fingers crossed that there will be less disruptions this coming season and we can all spend more time on the water.
