Santa came to play in the snow with SDYC families in December. View Photo Gallery.
This annual gathering of master skippers and crews reaffirms that teamwork is as essential on the racecourse as it is in life
At the prize giving of San Diego YC’s International Masters Championship in October, Malin Burnham, the 91-year-old sailor and business executive, spoke about the virtues of teamwork; how everything he has achieved in his storied career was a result of being part of a team. As he did so, I scanned the room and observed the faces of sailors on all 11 teams invited to the annual regatta. Many of them were nodding with agreement, because each of us who had skippered in the event, myself included, deeply appreciated the collective efforts of our crews during the intense 11-race, round-robin series.
As masters-age sailors—defined as 45 years or older (the helmsman had to be 60) — many of us listening to Burnham that evening were long in our years and wisdom, but we greatly appreciated the athleticism of our younger crew. The competition in San Diego was strong, even though there was a considerable amount of grey hair among the skippers. For me, the regatta was the conclusion of a full summer of racing 12-Metres, so I felt more confident than ever when racing got underway. I’d assembled a first-rate crew I felt would gel quickly.
Dave Abrams, the SDYC CUBAR chair, joins us on the Sailcast to talk about everything CUBAR after completing the event in recent weeks. Dave speaks about the logistics of the trip, the events along the way, charity work, and a little bit about his professional career.
Dave starts off the conversation telling host Alli Bell about what CUBAR is, some of the history of the event, and what his involvement in. He explains the lengthy process of putting it on, the planning that goes into it and the support that was needed. Also involved in the planning process is safety regulations, training weekends, manuals and marina and immigration coordination. Out of 42 applications, 24 were eligible and made the trip down the Mexican coast.
Without a long wind delay this morning, all three classes were able to get some racing in 9 knots that built to about 15-16 knots by mid-afternoon. After four races in the 49erFX and Nacra classes, Paris Henken (Coronado, Calif.) and Anna Tobias are leading the 49erFX fleet, and Riley Gibbs (Long Beach, Calif.) and Anna Weis (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) are in third in the Nacra 17 fleet.
The conversation began with Drew explaining some of his first moments in sailing and why he was so interested in the sport, including growing up on the East Coast and being fascinated with the engineering of boats.
After graduating from MIT, Bruce Nelson offered Drew a job designing boats in San Diego. “I fell in love with the passion of wanting to be a yacht designer,” he said.
Drew and host Alli Bell talk about his new Melges 20, why he loves it and some of his first events and successes in it including Worlds. He tells stories of Worlds in San San Francisco, being coached by Vince Brun, and finishing 5th despite their light weight.
25 teams from 5 countries competed in the 22nd Hobie 16 Women’s World Championships in Captiva Island, Florida, November 6-8. My crew Sarah Anne Kraft from Marina Del Rey and I are happy to report that our training and focus paid off.
Our competition included 2012 Olympic silver medalist Nina Curtis from Australia plus 3 other previous Hobie 16 world champions, an Aussie, a Mexican and a Puerto Rican, all very talented and strong female competitors. I’d won in 1991 and 1995 but do the math. That’s a LONG time ago! And I had not been racing Hobie’s for many years until May when Eric and I were in Florida on our cat El Gato and decided to do the Midwinters where I placed 4th in an open fleet. Since the worlds were to be held in Florida, and we would be taking a break from cruising, it felt like a good idea to just go for it. To train I started doing yoga and pilates, and sailed with Sarah in the North Americans in September. She also came down to SDYC and we trained on her boat.