Last weekend our SDYC team traveled to San Francisco to match race J22’s at the 2019 California Dreamin’ Series stop #1 (of 3 to be held). Our team of Mike Nicoletti, Kara Voss and Drew Guay arrived to the St. Francis Yacht Club early on Saturday morning to weigh in, attending the competitors briefing and rig & tune up. We were met with cold weather, rain and breeze on conditions. I got off to a slow start earning us a black flag in race 1 for some overly aggressive maneuvers. However we recovered quickly and only lost one more race the rest of the day. By Sunday the rain had let up but so had the wind and the current was ripping now, so the competition and racecourses were fierce. We finished most of the second round robin on Sunday before the breeze completely died and a lightning storm arrived winning all but two races (one of which we led at the last weather mark in) and did well enough to earn second overall. Since this was the first regatta of the season for our team (and we had a new teammate as well), we were glad to have had the opportunity to sail together across a wide range of conditions the SF bay can deliver. This event gave us a solid foundation to build on as we go into the May United States Match Race Qualifier to be held in the same venue and boats in two months time. Meanwhile, In two weekends (March 23rd) we head to Long Beach to race Catalina 37’s in the Butler Cup, followed a week later by the Ficker Cup, a Grade 2 event.
We would like to thank the Comp Fund and SDYC for supporting our match racing in 2019 and our team is looking forward to more successful results in the many match race events still to come this season.
There have been many exciting developments since our February Mainsheet update! Two IC37 training and practice platforms – East Coast and West Coast, plus Training Sails and more...
With the help of Rick Merriman, Team SDYC has secured a co-charter from the NYYC fleet of 20 brand new club owned IC37’s this summer. This will allow the Team to gain valuable boat on boat racing and practice time in the Newport, RI venue prior to the September NYYC Invitational Cup.
Team SDYC plans to sail in Newport from June 29 - July 7, competing in two regattas during that time: The NYYC One Design Regatta and the Sail Newport Regatta, with full practice days in between. Additional events are being considered. A training partner for practice days has also been engaged. The Team worked very hard to secure a co—charter arrangement with a NYYC member in order to lower the cost as much as possible for the team.
PC Fleet Captain Danielle Richards joins us on the San Diego Yacht Club Sailcast to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the PC Fleet, cover their colorful history, recap some previous and upcoming events, and discuss some of the current PC boats at SDYC.
Over February 16-18, my skipper Jack Egan and I traveled to Jensen Beach Florida to compete in the 2019 C420 Midwinters. Although we had traveled to Florida twice before for Orange Bowl, we had never sailed Midwinters before, and were eager to sail a new event.