The State of Maine High School Sailing Championship will be up for grabs when George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill hosts the 2001 Downeast Fleet Racing Championship this weekend.

George Stevens, Mount Desert Island, and Freeport are among the schools sending their sailing teams, and in total 15 teams from all over New England are scheduled to participate, said Gay Leach, the GSA development director and one of the regatta’s organizers. Several schools are sending both varsity and junior varsity teams.

“I think it’s a fun thing,” she said. “It helps to make kids more enthusiastic for sailing in Maine.”

The regatta will take place Saturday and Sunday in Smith Cove across from Castine Harbor.

The racing will start at 11 a.m. Saturday following a 10 a.m. skippers meeting. The sailors, coaches, and spectators are then transported to a floating boathouse and barges moored in the cove.

Sunday’s races will start at 10:30 a.m. The racing will end in the afternoon (no races will go off after 3 p.m.) and there will be a trophy presentation later in the evening.

The top Maine team wins the state championship. Yarmouth High’s team finished second overall last year and was the top Maine squad.

The 15-20 schools expected this weekend is a jump from 14 last year and 10 in 1999.

In high school fleet sailing, each school has an A division skipper and crew and a B division skipper and crew. After each race the A and B crews return to the floats and the two crews are mixed in an effort to prevent one team from benefiting from a particularly fast boat or being hobbled by a slow boat.

Last year officials ran 12 races on Saturday, six in the A division and six in the B division. But on Sunday, with little wind, only two races were completed.

All sailors are housed by George Stevens Academy families, and the teams get to mix during a dinner Saturday night.