What’s in a word? When speaking of “tradition”, one’s immediate response is a split-second scrutiny of whether the event in question is worthy of being associated with innumerable important traditions in our lives. What follows next is basically a subconscious, mental checklist of parameters that must be met to be called a tradition. The first one that comes to mind is determining if the event exerts a meaningful impact on our lives. But the ultimate barometer is examining how that event survives multiple historical iterations over time. It goes without saying that our great club has many rich traditions, some of which are being created as each year unfolds. The fascinating thing about traditions is that it’s impossible to determine which events will become embraced traditions over time, from the outset.
Trailering your boat through LA traffic, staying awake on the dusty hot I-99 through Bakersfield and Fresno. But you get to turn to starboard and elevate to a slice of heaven at Huntington Lake (elevation 6k’) in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 7 Finns, 3 from SDYC, competed in 7 races over the last weekend in July. Gary Mitchell, John Reiter, Lee Hope and families shared a cabin in the woods near the lake. It was party time for the fleet as most gathered at our pad for food and grog.
Typical lake sailing conditions, as the wind fluctuated from 7-15 knots both days. Many theories about which way to go, but the leaders typically won the drag race to the left side of the lake and never looked back. Beautiful low 80 degree weather, but cold water. Henry Sprague, 74 years old, dominated the fleet with all bullets except for the last race. Henry is coming off the Finn World Masters in Europe, with 250 competitors. Henry finished 12th overall and dominated the Grand Masters Fleet. He is the current World Grand Masters Champion.
SDYC’s Johannes McElvain and Alli Bell converse back and forth about the 2019 Transpac Race. Johannes and Alli talk about their boats, Cal Maritime and Hula Girl, stories of breaking boats, life on board, and their overall experience sailing from Long Beach to Hawaii.
This episode on the SDYC Sailcast starts with a brief discussion about how Johannes got into sailing, some reminiscing on his high school sailing and what he learned from his college team at Cal Maritime (the team he sailed with on Transpac). Being Johannes first ever Transpac (and Alli’s fourth), he explains some of the preparation and training they went through before setting off including practicing on the SoCal course and adding the finishing touches to the boat.
The 29er U.S. Nationals were held on the Columbia River Gorge, a sailing venue notorious for high winds and flat water. This was the first time my brother, Ian, and I would be sailing there. When we arrived at our campsite where we would be staying for the regatta, we were dumb struck by the shear awe of the venue.
The biggest challenge that lay before us was the fact that the Gorge is a river, which meant that water was always going to be pushing you somewhere and that it can completely change the way that you have to think about racing. Luckily for us, we had two days of training beforehand to get used to the current and when the first day of racing came we were feeling confident in the skills and knowledge that we had.