Buckeye Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta by Ben Conrad, OSUSC

Published 9:30pm on 24 Mar 2025

The weekend of April 26th and 27th, the Alum Creek Sailing Association and the Ohio State Sailing Team hosted the first ever Buckeye Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta (BIOR)! Attracting seven other teams from across the Midwest, BIOR marks the first keelboat regatta in the Midwest to be co-hosted by a college sailing team and is a huge step in OSUSC's effort to help sailors in the Midwest gain critical keelboat experience that will allow them to continue racing beyond college.

We had amazing sailing conditions for the J24 one-design fleet throughout the weekend, with steady 12-15 knot winds on Saturday allowing us to get in five fast, competitive races, with St. Thomas on Agape and Univ. of Chicago on Water Feature exchanging bullets for the first four races. Going into the second day, St. Thomas held a narrow lead, and Northwestern on JJ's J, Western Michigan on Turtle Love, and OSU 2 on Kraken were separated by only one point in a battle for third.

Sunday brought light, shifty winds that led to a one-hour postponement followed by challenging racing, with teams having to douse and redeploy spinnakers in the same downwind leg after a couple of big shifts. After the final two races, St. Thomas maintained their two point advantage in first place, followed by Univ. of Chicago and Northwestern in second and third. OSU 1 skipper Emerson Becker '28 picked up a bullet in her first keelboat regatta!

All in all, we had a fantastic weekend on the water, and all of the attending teams were extremely appreciative of OSU and ACSA for holding the event, with one student even noting that it was one of the most welcoming regattas they'd ever attended! Collegiate sailing is increasingly shifting towards keelboats, so it is incredibly exciting that we were able to bring a new one into the fold. We are incredibly thankful to ACSA and all of the owners and volunteers who helped make this a reality, and we can't wait to make it bigger and better next year!

-- by Ben Conrad, OSUSC