Photo Gallery

Take a look at some of the Gay Games and social events throughout the years. Clicking on each gallery title will take you to that individual gallery. Then click on the photo for slide show larger views and captions.

Downtown Cleveland Skyline

Waiting to march in

SFST Sailors waiting to march into the stadium for opening ceremonies.

France marches in

Team Newport marches in

Primary Sponsor - Tartan Yachts

Event organizer Mark Cheslow, Tartan representative Christine Corbissero and outstanding spouse support and event volunteer Ian Berardi-Cheslow march in with the Cleveland crowd.

Connie Schultz

Connie is the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, LGBT ally and wife of Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.

US Senator Sharrod Brown

Senator Sharrod Brown welcomes us to Northeast Ohio.

A Special Welcome

A special welcome from none other than the President of the United States Barack Obama...very cool, big applause!

The torch is lit

Friends of SFST

This is Marina Coleridge and Holly Krueter, ice hockey players and non-racing members of SFST at the opening ceremonies.

The Erie Queeries

SFST Oakland Wave Riders...and Oliver

Our awesome event coordinator volunteers

The names I know include Mark Cheslow, far left, to his left in white hat, Cheri Morabito, and to her left also in a white had, Christine Corbissero. Sorry...give me the other names and I'll fill those in!

SFST Oakland Wave Riders

L-R: Christy Leffall, Jan Crosbie-Taylor, Chloe Arnold, Dorothea Crosbie-Taylor.

SFST Team Lightning Bug

L-R: Ando Jones, Beth Richards, S, Heather Stewart

The Sailors of Gay Games 9 Cleveland

A main entrance to the Village

Part of the main gathering places for participants and visitors, right down near the lake and the R&R museum and football stadium.

The Village

Part of the main gathering places for participants and visitors, right down near the lake and the R&R museum and football stadium. It wasn't the greatest: little to no shade for the attendees, no real places to sit other than the grass and a few benches around the perimeter...none by the food, standing tables only...club music played too loud so you can barely hear each other unless you're totally in the far back end by the food...not conducive to being able to casually and comfortably talk and converse with others and meet new people.

Twister on the grass

This was the first night, and this was kind of funny...have no idea how long this lasted throughout the week. Still, you could barely hear anyone shouting out the colors...you had to look at the wheel to really know.

Local color

Entertainers on stilts

A bench with cute ladies!

SFST found an actual bench we could sit down for a while...and share some smiles with others!

Dark & stormy

Yacht club flags...that red & white striped one on the bottom is the postponement flag (AKA the "Cat in the Hat")...we waited to get started, would we sail? We made one race and then raced the clouds and storm back to land.

Team Toronto

Team Toronto sans jackets

Batten Down the Snatches

Our SFST friend Sara Benjamin and her team...who really did have the best team name!

Batten Down the Snatches

Seriously...ain't that the best! :)

Our boats - Lightnings

Several of the borrowed Lightnings used for the competative division.

Cheri welcomes you!

Co coordinator Cheri Morabito welcomes us hither to hear more about the boats.

Intro to a Lightning

Each of these boats was borrowed from a private owner, picked up and trailered to Edgewater and back to their owners at the end of the regatta by the Lightning guru and all around boat caretaker, Mr. Bill Buckles. That's the guy in the white shirt on the right whom everyone is listening to. The trick was, these were not true one-design boats. Every boat was rigged a bit differently and had different kinds of gear...so there was a lot of labeling attempted to let everyone know what line did what...some were better than others. That's why we rotated boats *every race* on the water so that everyone had a chance to sail a 'good' boat and the dogs.

Bill & class

Talking about the boats. There was also a recreational class sailing Tartan 10s...they didn't need this kind of lecture!

Nightime Cleveland skyline

Team Frankfurt

Our only German team, heck...our only fully European team at Cleveland.

Medals await

Dave Mathias photo

Photographer Dave Mathias was out on the water throughout the regatta taking some great shots of both fleets. THAT is where you can see some sailing photos! Check them out here at ClevelandSailing.com.

Dave Mathias photo - Team Lightning Bugs

Dave Mathias photo - Oakland Wave Riders

Lightning Bugs Cameo

The video produced for our sailing regatta opens with this cameo shot of SFST Team Lightning Bugs getting ready to head out to the course.

SFST Oakland Wave Riders

Christy Leffall, Dorothea Crosbie-Taylor, Jan Crosbie-Taylor & Chloe Arnold.

SFST Sailors

The Oakland Wave Riders and Heather Stewart, sailing on Team Lightning Bugs. Dorothea, Jan and Heather are the only SFST members who have sailed at the 4 Gay Games who have offered sailing, starting with Syndey in 2002, Chicago in 2006, Cologne in 2010 and Cleveland 2014...and we're planning on heading to Paris in 2018 if the coordinators can make it happen! Chloe only missed the Cologne Games and this was Christy's first regatta...and a newbie sailor at that!

The Naiads

Betsy Yingling, skipper...third from left. Cleveland locals with Betsy's sister (far left) the only lesbian aboard!

Israeli & Jewish sailors & friends

Members of the brand new Toronto Gay Sailing Club flank Elad Strohmayer, a deputy counsel general and diplomat stationed in Philadelphia...also one of the gold medal team members from the Aussies a Buckeye and an Israeli.

Elad, the super Israeli

Elad Strohmayer shows his Israeli pride...and some hidden talents? Must be how fast their boat sailed! :)

SFSTer Sarah Benjamin

Skipper of the Snatches! ;) Also known as Galaxy...just chillin' dockside.

07.07.07 Amorita's Unlucky Day

Owner of the NY30 Amorita, Jed Pearsall (right) and his partner Bill Doyle (left) screened their movie for us. A pretty amazing and gut wrenching story, with a "happy" ending. You can read more and view a trailer of the movie here: http://www.ny30.org/amorita.htm

07.07.07 Amorita's Unlucky Day

Thanks for sharing, guys!

Caption this!

Mark waiting "patiently" for everyone to be quiet, Cheri about to blow the whistle to get everyone quiet, and Christine...just making sure she's all together! ;)

Mr. Clean Award

The Knickerbockers from New York succeeded in capsizing one of the Lightnings, inside the transfer marina, and proceeded to have the mud in which the mast got stuck ceremoniously dumped upon their heads as the boat righted!

Best Team Name

Wasted Seamen, an all straight crew. We still believe our pals Batten Down the Snatches should have won this one, most def! :)

Rise Above It All

This is where the Snatches won their award. As it was, they had trained and fully expected to be sailing in the Tartan 10 class. Imagine their surprise when they found out they had mistakenly registered in the wrong fleet! Because of the limit of the available number of Tartans, they were not allowed to switch fleets, so they stayed in the Lightning fleet and gave it a shot on our first wild & wooly - and only! - day on Lake Erie and decided that was enough.

George Clooney ER Award

The only competitor ever having to leave the venue in an ambulance...but it wasn't for sailing. He climbed a fence trying to take a picture, lost his footing and fell about 10 feet down to a bed of very uncomfortable rocks. Luckily, Warren had only a few bumps and bruises, but he was okay!

Ms. Congeniality

The ever friendly & kissing Malaysian machine... Li from Team Toronto!

Outstanding P.R.O.

Our Primary Race Official, Judy...from Florida! She did an outstanding job in leading her team of volunteers and assuring we had as many safe races as possible...and boy, did we race a lot! Thanks, Judy!

Outstanding Spouse

Most definitely the sweetest, friendliest and most supportive spouse and volunteer, Mr. Ian Berardi-Cheslow! Thank you so much to Ian for being our morning shuttle driver and for everything he did to help our primary coordinator, Mark Cheslow. We love you, Ian! Mwa!

Edgewater Burgees around the World

The skippers who traveled the furthest from around the world who camp to play were given a burgee from Tim of Edgewater YC.

Bring on the medals!

Christine Corbissero, who was the rep from our primary sponsor Tartan Yachts, together with one of the Federation's organizing committee members passed out the official GG9 Awards.

Bronze - Tartan 10

Team Toronto Gay Sailing Team 2

Silver - Tartan 10s

Rainbow Spinnaker Sailing Club from Team DC

Gold - Tartan 10s

Team Frankfurt. Bronze medalists in Cologne in the recreational fleet from Frankfurt, Germany move up the ranks and grab the gold!

Bronze - Lightnings

The Naiads, mostly straight locals...except Betsy's sister next to Mark who traveled in to compete with them.

Silver - Lightnings

Team Newport, perennial podium winners. Accompanies by Greg Group, a member of Edgewater who was connected with Bill through Bill's boat Amorita...it's a long story...but we were there because Greg helped make it happen, thank you Greg!

Cleveland Public Library

The beautiful Cleveland Public Library flying our colors...beautiful inside and out.

GG9 Rainbow Regatta Flag Raising

Before we sailed, we celebrated being together. Here at our opening social event, the sailors and volunteers hoisted our rainbow flag to "officially" open our regatta.

Social Sailing and More

Photos from various SF Sailing Team casual sailing days, member organized sails, and other social events. Members include boat owners, club member skippers who charter regularly, and friends who like to sail! For those who aren't interested in racing, this is the way to invite and/or join with other LGBT sailors.

Gay Games X 2018 Paris, France

Gay Games IX 2014 Cleveland, Ohio, USA

The Games returns to the US to an unlikely location for many LGBT people to travel too...Cleveland, really? But you know what? Cleveland did us proud! It wasn't easy, and there were obvious vestiges of opposition, but Cleveland welcomed us...which could be seen clearly from the rainbow flags everywhere...including the beautiful rainbow lit Tower Terminal. Hopefully many hearts & minds were changed, we met a few that were...very cool!

Most Edgewater Yacht Club members welcomed us as our hosts, those that didn't weren't welcomed during our stay...a nice show of support of club members & allies! Our sailing coordinators had a *heck* of a situation to deal with, as a storm made Lake Erie unsafe to sail most days of our regatta week! Hard work from the coordinators, race officials, supporters, volunteers and the Cleveland sailing community, secured an alternative sailing location and boat parking at Lakeside Yacht Club helped to ensure an extremely competitive & active racing venue...and LOTS of races! These are mostly event photos by SFST, because we were sailing! For actual sailing photos, the best site to visit is ClevelandSailing.com.

Gay Games VIII 2010 Cologne, Germany

With the economy in the tank and people without jobs, getting to Germany was a challenge for many. Only four SFST members were able to make it, one team and one member who sailed as a skipper with the GUST UK team.

Our sailing venue was the only one to ever leave the host country in the history of the Games, we commuted to Roermond, Netherlands for our sailing experience. What wonderful hosts were the people of Roermond and the Mass en Roer Yacht Club. What a fun, challenging regatta and our third time with our sailing friends from around the world!

Gay Games VII 2006 in Chicago, Illinois, USA

Opening ceremonies on Soldier Field and closing ceremonies on Wrigley Field, some definite sporting locations! A big heat wave was a challenge for many athletes and the wind, but being on the water was better than a tennis court!

SFST was represented by three teams sailing against some of our old friends from Australia, France, the Netherlands as well as those from across the USA.

Swordfish - Magic - Pouisson Valant Team Silver.jpg

Gay Games VI 2002 in Sydney, Australia

The very first inclusion of sailing as a sport in the Gay Games. Each host can add a couple of sports indigenous to their location and sailing in Sydney Harbor was a perfect match! Fun and friendships from around the world, it was a spectacular event!