The Barrington High School sailing team will be looking to build off a strong showing at regionals when it competes at nationals this weekend.

Barrington qualified for the Interscholastic Sailing Association High School Doublehanded Championship after finishing third at the New England Championships late last month. 

Dennis Kloc has been coaching the sailing club team in Barrington for the last four years. He said the program is focused primarily in offering more sailing opportunities to local students and exposing them to racing. 

"This year was the first year we really ramped it up," he said.

Mr. Kloc said his team's roster is filled with strong sailors this year. The skippers are senior Riley Kloc, sophomore Chip Kreuzkamp and freshman Josh Dillon, while the crews are juniors Drew Dillon and Kaleigh Morgan and sophomore Joe Wicker. 

At regionals, Riley and Kaleigh won the A Division, while Chip and Joe, and Josh and Drew shared duties to bring home third place in B Division.

"It does feel good," said Mr. Kloc, referring to the team's strong finish at regionals. 

Mr. Kloc said most of his team members have sailed at large national regattas in the past, just never in the high school team format. At nationals, the sailors will rotate from boat to boat, and low scores are not thrown out.

"It's a little more of a taste of what it's like to sail in college," said Mr. Kloc.

Barrington is likely to face some stiff competition at nationals. 

"The west coast teams seem to dominate nationals," said Mr. Kloc.

In addition to the tough field, Barrington will also be racing in boats they normally don't sail — FJs or Flying Juniors. The Barrington coach said many west coast teams use FJs in regular season racing. Barrington had to look to local college sailing teams in order to gain some experience in FJs. The sailing teams at Roger Williams University and at Brown University invited the Barrington High School sailors to borrow their FJs for training recently.

Mr. Kloc thanked the college teams for their support and said the sailing community in general has been very helpful to the BHS club. 

"The community's been phenomenal. We've had great support. Barrington Yacht Club has been very generous. The sailing community, the general community," said Mr. Kloc.

The BHS coach said a member of The Hotchkiss School sailing team (Hotchkiss finished in second place at regionals) actually organized a bake sale to raise money for Barrington. The event raised $410 which will help off-set costs associated with Barrington's trip to nationals. Also, the BHS team set up a gofundme page and people from all over the country donated money.

Mr. Kloc said some of his fellow sailors from the Tuesday night races in Barrington also donated. 

"Our goal was to raise $6,300. We've raised $7,500," he said.

The fund-raising is key for a team like Barrington, which, unlike some of the private school teams, does not have an endowment. 

The national championships, which will be held at Lakewood Yacht Club in Texas, are set for Friday and Saturday, May 12 and 13.