14-year-old girl sails alone at night, wins prestigious race in Michigan

Upon her return to high school this fall, 14-year-old Merritt Sellers will probably have a unique reply than most if a trainer asks college students what they did this summer time.

It’s actually uncertain anybody else will be capable of reply that they sailed a 36-foot boat alone and received a prestigious crusing race.

On July 17, Sellers and her father Scott received the annual Bayview Mackinac Race, an annual crusing race in Michigan that begins in Port Huron and ends at Mackinac Island, a nautical journey of greater than 200 miles.

Remarkably, Merritt Sellers sailed the boat all by herself in the midst of the evening — whereas Scott rested —and overtook their essential rivals within the race, in accordance with the Detroit Free Press.

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“I sat there, trimming the sail, consuming Solar Chips, and serious about how a lot I needed to go to mattress,” Merritt Sellers advised the Free Press afterward.

The Sellers, who reside in Larkspur, California however have a summer time house in Harbor Springs, Michigan, ended up beating their essential rivals, a ship named “Utah” from Holland, Michigan, by greater than an hour.

“We received ‘em at evening,” Scott Sellers, 50, advised the Free Press after the race. “I apprehensive they’d get us. We went from two miles again to 2 miles in entrance.”

It was fairly an achievement not solely from the angle of a 14-year-old lady crusing a profitable boat by herself for thus lengthy, but in addition as a result of a two-person crew received a race on a ship that usually contains a crew of eight.

“I’m at a degree as a sailor the place I’m ready to do that. It feels fairly cool,” Merritt Sellers advised the Free Press. “Every thing was fairly mellow and manageable.”