The array of container, tanker, and cruise ships in Long Beach Harbor shook up the breeze while the Santa Anas fought to come in all weekend, giving us moderate wind on Saturday resulting in a delayed start and sporty conditions on Sunday. Traci Miller, Kim Stanford, Jessica Sweeney, Marnie Jenkins, Kara Voss, Julie Mitchell, Tiffany Billings and Alexa Cavalieri joined helmswoman Kris Zillmann for 7 races against some of the best female sailors on the West Coast. Team SDYC ended up 5th overall, but was proud of the effort and the comeback on day 2 when we finally got our Catalina 37 moving.
It was all smiles and high energy for the 275+ sailors who visited San Diego Yacht Club from all over Southern California, with a few special guests from as far away as Chicago, Sept. 18-19 for what has become one of the most popular regattas in Southern California. In fact, at 38 boats, organizer Barrett Canfield of South Coast Yachts realized their formula for the regatta made this Beneteau Cup the largest B-Cup in the USA and possibly the world, rivaling the B-Cup in Sydney, Australia.
The San Diego Yacht Club’s One Design Weekend this past Saturday and Sunday was filled with great competition for the Etchells fleet and for most was doubling as practice for the upcoming Etchells North American Championship this Friday, October 1 to Sunday, October 3.
At the top of the fleet was Argyle Campbell on Rock On. "The team sailed with great attitudes in the light and shifty conditions and never gave up," Campbell said. Coach Mark Ivey was also there to direct the team. Campbell will be sailing in the North Americans with crew Alex Curtiss, Chuck Eaton and Jesse Kirkland.
The Beneteau 36.7 North American Championship was dominated by Chick Pyle's Kea. The team finished the first day of the regatta with a picket fence and never let up from there. Over three days of racing, Kea earned 7 bullets in 9 races - 12 points overall and 22 points ahead of second place finisher Thomas Shepherd on Kraken.
Pyle attributes their great results to clean sailing. "Success comes a lot easier when you have a good start and clear lanes. We had only two good starts out of nine races, so battling through for clear lanes was paramount. Tactician and SDYC Staff Commodore Bill Campbell’s overall strategy is to stay away from other boats and not engage whenever possible. Kea likes to fly in clear air," he explained.
After a year without one of San Diego Yacht Club’s most cherished and anticipated regattas, the Club is excited to welcome twelve legendary Master skippers to vie for victory at the 2021 International Masters Regatta. The event to be held from Thursday, October 21 - Saturday, October 23 will feature three days of competition on San Diego Bay from some very well-known names in sailing. Skippers will be joining us in Southern California from all over the globe: New York, New Zealand, Toronto, Washington, and California.
SDYC's Bruce Golison skippered his J/70 Midlife Crisis with an all-SDYC crew to 2nd place in the J/70 World Championship at Cal Yacht Club this summer. His team was primed with a solid win in the Pre-Worlds last month. One of only two teams to get bullets in the tightly matched Worlds event (along with Magatron), Golison sailed with Steve Hunt, Erik Shampain and Jeff Reynolds.
NEWPORT, R.I. — If it wasn't the lumpy seas, it was the capricious breeze. Wherever sailors competing in the 2021 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup turned today, there was something standing between them and the groove so essential for a solid finish in a competitive fleet: a wave, a shift, a patch of no wind, a trench of disturbed air, a picket fence of competitors on starboard tack. It was one of the most challenging days on the water in the history of this storied event.
But intense pressure creates diamonds and with its back to the proverbial wall, San Diego Yacht Club turned in a gem of a performance, winning both races and saving its hopes of a podium finish after a middling start, by its lofty standards, to the regatta. The runner up from 2019 now sits fourth.
US Sailing has named the 16 athletes that will be representing the US at the 2021 Youth Sailing World Championships. The 50th edition of the premier event in international youth sailing will take place December 11-18 in Al-Mussanah, Oman and is open to athletes under age 19. SDYC's Ian & Noah Nyenhuis will be the Male Skiff (29er) team.
Recently, my brother, Noah, and I went to Valencia, Spain to compete in the 29er Open World Championships. The regatta consisted of 3 days of qualifying and 3 days of final competition. There were 193 boats from many different countries. The week prior to the Worlds, we sailed in a Coaches Regatta. We were happy to have finished second in the small but competitive fleet. The regatta was a good way to judge what the fleet would be like and what the race course was going to most likely be during the World Championships. The experience that we gained from that regatta would go on to help us at the Worlds.
Many Finn sailors were using the Finn PCCs as a warm up to this weekend’s Finn North American Masters Championship, sailed on the same course out on the Coronado Roads. One return sailor was Rob Coutts from Mission Bay Yacht Club. Coutts placed mid-fleet at the PCC and returned this weekend for the North American Masters finishing second on Beverley with 21 points. However, even those who came with practice could not compete with Gregg Morton on Pickle Dish.