It was a big weekend for athletics in San Diego with events ranging from the SoCal Ragnar Relay to the Crew Classic in Fiesta Bay to the 26 boats that competed in the Etchells Midwinters in Coronado Roads. From Friday, April 1 through Sunday, April 3, SDYC was able to pull off 10 races for the Midwinters in total.
The first two races on Friday featured winds oscillating between 220-240 degrees with velocity around 7-10 knots evenly spread throughout the course. Saturday and Sunday were both typical San Diego sailing days with more pressure on the right. The breeze was shiftier on Saturday with speeds peaking at about 13 knots. Sunday was the windiest day of the weekend with winds peaking at 15 knots during the second race of the day.
The Etchells fleet is typically packed with tough competition and this past weekend was no different. According to J.C. Langlois on Jack, the second Corinthian finisher, “I think everyone was on their game and trying to get in the single digits. Race Committee did a fantastic job running races on time and moving marks as necessary to help us get some great races in.”
Mark Hardenbergh, skipper of Natasha, was pleased with their standings after overcoming an undesirable moment. “We were OCS on Saturday in the second race. We went back to the start line and still managed to come back to tenth place. We finished in the top ten of five of the seven races that we competed in, which was a huge highlight for us.”
The crew on Natasha is comprised of three amateur sailing brothers. Mark lives in Newport Beach now, but his brothers traveled from Ohio and New Hampshire to partake in the event. All three love to race in San Diego.
Scott Watson of Viva skippered his crew to a fourth place finish and the top sitting Corinthian spot. “We didn’t have any disaster races, no OCS’s, and no fouls which we were happy about. We also had a sail change with a relatively new sail that went off smoothly. We’ve been sailing Etchells for about 25 years, so we consider ourselves pretty seasoned. We’re looking forward to sailing North Americans in San Francisco and we’ll be practicing for that all summer.”
The overall winner of the day was the new boat Flow, skippered by Steve Hunt who is a past Etchells World Champion. Hunt contributes the victory to his crew. “I want to thank my young, strong team that hiked pretty hard on all three days. The breeze was up really well for the last two days and my crew of Jake, Kayla and Erik did really good job making good calls for me. I’m extremely pleased with how we did and I consider myself very lucky.”
But there was someone special behind the scenes ensuring that Hunt could focus on his sailing strategy throughout the weekend.
“The real all-star of the weekend was my wife. Our twin babies are teething and she was on night duty all weekend long.”
The Etchells West Coast Spring Series continues on April 9-10 with the Pacific Coast Championship. There will be a post-race debrief with chips, salsa and beer on Saturday, April 9 in the Jessop Room. The awards ceremony with chili and beer will be outside the Spinnaker Room after racing concludes on Sunday, April 10. The West Coast series culminates on May 14-15 with the ORCA Bowl.