The pressure was on at the Etchells Midwinters West, the only regatta of the Etchells West Coast Spring Series with no throw-out score option. All three days were full of tight, fast racing with intense competition, but Eric Doyle, sailing on USA 1177 with crew Patrick Powell and Justin Mendham, has a good start to the top spot on the series podium by finishing first this weekend.

Eric Doyle has been skippering the event for a couple of years, but has experience crewing for other Etchells sailors during this regatta too many times to count. "Once we had confidence that our rig tune and sail trim was correct and we were fast, we used excellent starts and conservative tactics to make sure we were always in the front of the fleet. We didn't have to take many risks and just kept chipping away at good finishes over the long series."

Congratulations to Team SDYC, winners of the Palmer Cup Grandmasters Team Race at Newport Harbor Yacht Club. Teams raced in a fleet of Harbor 20s, with 7 teams from across the country competing. Team SDYC was represented by Ben Mitchell / Brad Rodi, Bill Campbell / Jed Olenick, and Tim Fuller / Chuck Sinks.

Will Cyr (USA) will be nominated for the Formula Kite event at the 2019 Pan American Games this July in Peru. Cyr, along with four other USA competitors, battled it out for the qualifying spot as the top USA finisher in San Diego Yacht Club’s Kiteboarding Spring Regatta and USA Pan Am Games Athlete qualifier, on March 29-31, 2019. Selection for the Pan Am Games is processed by the USOC after US Sailing nominates all of the athletes.

As a three-time winner of the Butler Cup, all I wanted for my birthday this year was one more. Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be. It seems like each year the Long Beach Yacht Club symmetrical pole Catalina 37s get more physically demanding, we just get older… or maybe a bit of both. On Saturday morning last weekend, on a sunny but cool day in California, after a few last minute rearrangements of the crew list, I quickly realized I was one of the more ‘senior members’ of the team and sailing for the first time with over half of the group.

Fifty J/70’s reveled in gorgeous Biscayne Bay conditions on February 22 - 24 for the International J/70 Midwinter Championship. This event, hosted by Coral Reef Yacht Club in Miami, FL, was also a qualifier for the 2020 World Championship to be hosted by California Yacht Club (2 Open berths and 1 Corinthian berth). Miami delivered its renowned weather with sunny skies, temperatures in the low 80s and winds between 8-20 knots for the nine race series. With multiple J70 world champions, Olympic medalists and many other champion sailors competing, the competition was incredible. San Diego Yacht Club’s Bruce Golison with his team of Steve Hunt, Erik Shampain and Jeff Reynolds were one of the teams to watch for the championship going into the event.

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.