L’pool ship wins Kiwi Cup

By Ashley M. Casey

Staff Writer

Two years after a pair of Liverpool brothers snagged second place in the 2016 Sea Scout Kiwi Cup, two crews of Sea Scout Ship Cricket 876 held their own in this year’s William I. Koch International Sea Scout Cup, which took place from July 8 to 12 in Galveston, Texas.

Bridgeport-based skipper Robert Gustke and crewman Andrew York, of Baldwinsville, triumphed with first place in the international regatta’s Kiwi Cup this year.

With his older brother Lucas having aged out of the Sea Scout program, skipper Aiden Meyer teamed up with crewman Cooper Pyle, of Phoenix, to qualify for the Koch Cup.

Out of 32 crews, Meyer and Pyle came in 16th and Gustke and York placed 17th.

“We were the losers of the winners, and they were the winners of the losers,” Meyer joked.

“The other moral of the story is we got trophies and they didn’t,” Gustke said.

Bill Koch, billionaire businessman and champion sailor, founded the Koch Cup in 2002. He addressed the 2018 participants in a statement.

“I would like to congratulate the winners of the Koch Cup and the Kiwi Cup on a job well done. But I identify more with the sailors that did not win,” he said. “Losing is a good thing. I learned valuable lessons from each loss. So do not think of yourselves as losers, but rather winners in progress.”

The Liverpool-based Sea Scouts expressed satisfaction — and surprise — at their outcomes, especially given other crews’ greater resources and experience.

“It was surprising, but definitely welcome. Our low expectations were exceeded,” Pyle laughed. “We didn’t get mostly demolished.”

Max Katz-Christy and Thomas Craciun, both from Cambridge, Massachusetts, were the winners of the Koch Cup.

At the qualifier in Connecticut in 2017, the Cricket crews vied for a place in either the titular Koch Cup — which takes the top 16 crews — or the Kiwi Cup, which is made up of the next 16 teams.

The boys survived the qualifier more or less in one piece.

“The best sailing is when someone almost drowns,” Meyer said.

“That’s where the best stories come from,” Pyle added.

Pyle was battling strep throat and Meyer ended up with a concussion, but they managed to place third, securing their place among the top 16 teams for the Koch Cup. Gustke and York made it into the Kiwi Cup.

“It was terrifying because we had 25-knot wind every day,” Gustke said.

As for the main event earlier this month in Texas, York called the experience both fun and intense. In addition to their victories, the scouts made friends with young sailors from across the globe. Participants hailed from 10 different countries and 17 states.

“There was a lot of Google Translate going around,” Gustke said.

A handful of kids spoke German, so they created a massive group chat to communicate.

“We found a lot of the Europeans and even some of the Brazilian kids spoke German, [but] there was no one from Germany,” York noted.

Both York and Gustke are about to start their sophomore year of college, York at Clarkson University and Gustke at Michigan State University.

“We both started sailing a little bit at an earlier age. We were both in Boy Scouts,” York said of himself and his skipper.

Unfortunately for York, Clarkson does not have a sailing program, but Gustke sails at MSU.

Meyer just graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill and is headed to Brown University in the fall, where he hopes to qualify for the sailing team.

Pyle, who will graduate from Baker High School in Baldwinsville next year, is the lone high-schooler left on the Cricket. The Sea Scouts program is open to sailors between the ages of 13 and 21, so while his teammates have a few years of eligibility left, they may not be able to participate in the next Koch Cup, which occurs every two years.

“I’m the one that has to carry on the legacy,” Pyle said.

But Pyle does not have to be alone, as the Cricket is recruiting.

“We’ve gotten a few new members this summer,” Gustke said.

The team practices at the Onondaga Yacht Club in Liverpool. A student membership is $50 and grants members access to the boats and facilities. Both the yacht club and the American Legion Auxiliary of Post 1276 in Eastwood made donations toward the crews’ travel expenses as well.

“That was by far the best decision I’ve made in the last 10 years of my life,” Meyer said of joining the yacht club and Sea Scouts.

The boys encourage young people to sign up for Sea Scouts whether they “want to get into racing or if they just want to float around.”

To learn more about Sea Scouting, visit seascout.org. To join Liverpool Ship Cricket 876, contact leader Rob Stone at [email protected] or (315) 766-5780.