Christian Seidel and his teammates on the J/24 Wharf Rat, had expectations of winning their division at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in San Diego. Hopeful, yes, but having finished 10th overall the previous year, says Seidel, they would have been happy with a place in the top-five. And that’s how the scenario was shaping this morning when the sailors headed out for the final day of racing under grey skies and a light southwest wind.

Wharf Rat’s first finish of the day was a fifth in the 13-boat fleet, enough to keep them knocking at the door, but when the top-two boats dragged each other to the middle of the fleet in a match race in the next race, team Wharf Rat vaulted into contention with one final race to go.

And what did they do? They won the race that counted most, in convincing fashion, to finish the regatta with a 2-point lead over Susan Taylor and her teammates on Take Five.

Off the starting line in that final race, Seidel and his teammates (with Harry Dursch helming) were able to break free of a pin-end pile up and speed off to the favored left side of the racecourse. First around the weather mark, all that was left to do was keep the hard-charging fleet behind them.

“The plan was to start clear and get left and I guess it worked,” said Seidel. “We were fast upwind and just killed it with boatspeed, but to be honest, the only reason we were able to win was that the two boats that were tied for first took themselves out. That’s sailboat racing: sometimes you do the right things and win a race and sometimes you can just take yourself out of it.”

After 10 races for the seven-boat J/70 fleet, it was Jeff Janov and his sons on Minor Threat that closed out the regatta with a race win in the first of the day. They followed up with a second for a 2-point win over Eduardo Saenz’s Nimbus. For the Ultimate 20s, 10 races as well were enough for Travis Gregory’s Team 222, from Farmington, Utah, to win with a 7-point margin over Marty Smihula’s Hard Drive. Gregory and his teammates Brady Lofthouse and Mark Peery won an impressive five races over three days of close racing on San Diego’s South Bay.

In the VX One fleet, Charlie Welsh’s Space Cadet, with crew Carolyn Smith and Elizabeth Swain, went 1-3-2 to win the series by 4 points over Long Beach-based skipper Keith Christensen’s USA 285. Kyle Hirsch and Cole Baker, of San Diego, continued their run at the top of the Melges 15 fleet with 1-3-2 on the day and 4 points was the final difference, with Brian Savery and Scott Wilson, of Bellingham, Washington, taking second overall.

Sunday’s lighter winds provided the weekend’s most challenging conditions for the International 14 sailors, but Garrett Brown and Morgan Pinckney, of Long Beach, California, posted back-to-back wins in the final two races to take the overall title and the West Coast Championship trophy from Terence Gleeson and Jett Jennings. Only 3 points was the difference after nine races.

On the Paralympic sailing circle, Jim Thweatt and Eddie Lewis Jr. held their respective leads in the Hansa 303 and Martin 16 classes, both finishing the three-day, 10-race regatta with 16 points apiece.

On the offshore racecourse the breeze came lighter than forecast, and with a patchy southwesterly direction and a strong current, many teams struggled to get off the starting line, but those who got away first were rewarded with an open course and easier race to defend. That much was true for Rudolph Hasl’s local J/145 Palaemon, the 2022 Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego Overall Winner. Palaemon won both races running away to close the series with five wins in six races.

Stewart Cannon’s team on the J/105 J-OK won the first race of the day, and with a seventh in the final race, they’d padded their lead enough to win the fleet with four points to spare.

Meanwhile the battle of the weekend in the Beneteau 36.7 fleet played out in dramatic fashion with Peter Cochran’s Rode Rage and Chick Pyle’s Kea. Rode Rage escaped from a crowded start in the first race put up its first win of the day while Kea had to battle from a bad start to finish third. That was enough for Rode Rage to simply cover Kea in the final race, finishing second to Kea’s fourth and the ending Kea’s 11-year winning streak at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego.

Ed Sanford’s J/111 Creative came out on top of the tie breaker Mark Stratton’s J/111 Cheeky to win the Fast 40 division, and there was no change to the overnight leaders of the Distance Race fleet: Mark Berdan’s UnEven Keel was the top multihull and Timothy Forderer Hobie 33 Holy Toledo was the top monohull.

As is tradition at all stops of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series, one overall winner was selected from individual class winners to represent the regatta at the Caribbean Championship in the British Virgin Islands in October. Charlie Welsh and his teammates on the VX One Space Cadet won the honors and confirmed they’ll be ready to apply their regatta-winning sportboat skills to the bareboat 47-footers of the Sunsail charter boat fleet.

Final Results

The post Upsets and Surprises Mark San Diego Regatta Finale appeared first on Sailing World.

The question of the morning around the San Diego Yacht Club as racers waited out an hour postponement for the morning fog to burn away was, “Who here can actually beat Chick Pyle?”

It’s a question that has stymied many a Beneteau 36.7 team over the past decade, and a valid question at that, as most sailors around these parts have lost track of how many times Pyle and his teammates on Kea have won the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta in San Diego, and everything else in between.

Kea’s seasoned and longtime crew don’t make it easy for any of the Beneteau 36.7 teams in Southern California, and as the action got started on the first day of the regatta for the 36.7s, in a building 10 to 12-knot breeze, it appeared to be a fait accompli as Pyle and Co., won the first two races. Nipping at their transom at each finish, however, was Peter Cochran and his teammates on Rode Rage, from Julian, California.

Cumulate Results After Race Day 2 of 3

The tables then turned in the third race of the day, with Rode Rage scoring a win with Kea crossing fourth to put the series tied. Cochran gave full credit to his teammates for keeping their composure on a stressful day of wind shifts and dramatic changes in wind strength, and especially to his tactician for ensuring Kea could not get past once they had them in their rear-view mirror. “It was tight racing,” Cochran said, “and in that last race we able to keep pushing Kea back into the pack. We know we can never let them get leverage or get away, so that will be the plan for tomorrow. I’m not sure Chick has ever been tied for first going into the last race, so it will be fun to see how this plays out.”

With nine J/105s crowding the starting line on the ocean course off Coronado, the scene was more akin to San Diego’s rush hour traffic, but Stewart Cannon’s veteran team on J-OK always managed to emerge from the scrum and into clean air to work their way to the front. A win in Race 1 was followed by a pair of seconds which puts the local team comfortably in the lead with one day remaining. John and Elena Bennett’s Boss Lady won the third race of the day to bring themselves within 4 points of J-OK.

Rudolph Hasl’s J/145 Paleamon, the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta San Diego’s 2022 Overall Winner, is the big boat of the three-deep ORC division and when alone on the open course they were able to sail their boat to its full potential and win two of three races. In the new Fast 40 division, which is a mix of 40-footers racing under PHRF, John Laun’s J/120 Caper started with a fourth before winning the next two in the afternoon’s building breeze. Ed Sanford’s J/111 Creative is only 1 point in arrears, however, having won the day’s first race and finishing second the final race of the day.

Meanwhile, on the South Bay Circle, the combined race committees of San Diego and Coronado yacht clubs, delivered four additional races to bring the series to eight races for most classes. Tom Garrett’s Sloop John B, from Newport Beach, California, and Jeff Janov’s Minor Threat, from Malibu, California, only have 3 points between them, so all is to play for on the final day of racing on Sunday, with two additional races likely.

Travis Gregory’s 222, from Farmington, Utah, is the new Ultimate 20 class leader having advanced from second overall on Fridaynwith an impressive string of four race wins today, but only 2 points separate them from Marty Smihula’s Hard Drive, from Sandy, Utah.

Charlie Welsh’s Space Cadet continued its dominance of the five-boat VX One fleet with four race wins as well, and in the Melges 15 fleet, Kyle Hirsch and crewmate Cole Baker won three races to pad their lead to 3 points.

Terrence Gleeson and Jett Jennings maintained their place atop the International 14 series with top-five finishes, but a pair of race wins by Brad Reutenik and Parker Shin at the end of the day, now has them hunting the leaders with plenty more races ahead.

Thirteen J/24s began their series today and it was Susan Taylor’s Take Five, from Los Angeles, emerging as the top team with finishes of 2-4-1-3, which left them tied on the results sheet with Jasper Van Vliet’s Evil Octopus, from Mill Valley, California, each with 10 points apiece.

On the Paralympic sailing circle, Jim Thweatt continued his dominance of the Hansa 303 fleet, but in the Martin 16s, Eddie Lewis Jr., rebounded after a tough first day to win all four races and take the lead from Sue Taetzsch.

Results of the long-course distance race, which featured three trimarans and one outlier Hobie 33 had Mark Berden’s UnEven Keel leading the multihulls around the 13-mile or so course from start to finish.

The post A Day of Dominance in San Diego appeared first on Sailing World.

The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego got underway on Friday with the fleets of San Diego’s South Bay circles enjoying a slowly building west breeze that allowed four races to be completed in most classes.

The two newest fleets of this year’s regatta—the doublehanded Melges 15 and the larger three-person VX One sportboat—showcased close and tactical racing on their course, which was set just south of the Coronado Bridge. With the wind direction more northerly in this part of the bay, the preferred side of the racecourse was along the city front. Short tacking along the shoreline favored the teams with sharper boathandling. Brian Savery and Scott Wilson, from Bellingham, Washington, were the top Melges 15 team of the day, winning three of four races to pad a 4-point lead over the Mission Bay-based pair of Kyle Baker and Cole Hirsch.

Charlie Welsh’s VX One Space Cadet, from Newport Beach, California, started the day with a win and followed that with a second and another win before posting a fourth to end the day with a 1-point margin over Keith and Curtis Christensen and Karen Rodgers.

The 13-boat International 14 fleet, sailing its West Coast Championship, enjoyed two buoy races before setting off on their traditional Bay Race. Terence Gleeson and Jett Jennings on the green-hulled Dunder Pit were first to finish the marathon in what Gleeson described as a relatively easy lap of the San Diego Bay. “It was nice to do our distance race today rather than Saturday because there’s a lot less boat traffic,” Glesson said. “The wind was consistent enough that there weren’t the usual [no-wind] holes, so there was a lot less capsizing than we’d normally see.”

Further south on South Bay, the J/70s, and Ultimate 20 fleets produced two runaway leaders in Eduardo Saenz’s J/70 Nimbus, from Mexico City, and Marty Smihula’s Ultimate 20 team on Hard Drive, one of several Ultimate 20 teams that traveled from Park City, Utah.

A new addition to this year’s edition of the regatta are two Paralympic sailing classes: the Hansa 303 and Martin 16. Jim Thwaett, of West Sacramento, California, guided his yellow Hansa Karl into the series lead with finishes of 2-1-2-2 in the four-boat fleet to end the day with a 2-point lead over Kai McDonald, of Imperial Beach, California. In the Martin 16s, Sue Taetzsch, of Poway, California, went undefeated in the eight-boat fleet.

The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego continues with races over the weekend, with the addition of J/24s on South Bay, the regatta’s bigger boats on the ocean racecourse off Point Loma and the first of two days of long-course racing for the Distance Race competitors, which will be starting off Shelter Island mid-morning. All other classes will be racing by noon.

The post Smooth Start to Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego appeared first on Sailing World.

[instagram-feed feed=14]

The post Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego 2023 Gallery appeared first on Sailing World.

The second stop of the national Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series kicks off on Friday in San Diego with the return of the small-boat action on South Bay. Two classes new to the regatta—VX One and Melges 15—will bring extra sportboat flair to the racecourse, which will be shared with the growing local J/24 fleet and the International 14s, contesting their Midwinter Championship, as well as J/70s and Ultimate 20s, which pride themselves on being America’s first sportboat class.

The regatta’s Ocean Course classes will get their races underway on Saturday and Sunday, as will the Distance Race fleet, which will be sailing one long course each day, with a leg out into the waters off Point Loma before returning to navigate the challenging course around San Diego Bay.

Offshore will be the legacy classes of the San Diego regatta, including J/105s, Beneteau 36.7s and 40.7s. An ORC fleet that includes the 2022 regatta’s overall winner—Rudolph Hasl’s J/145, Palaemon—will race alongside a newly formed rating band of boats called “Fast 40,” which includes a variety of 40-footers, including a trio of J/120s, a J/122 and J/111, with the sole symmetric outlier being the 1991-vintage Tripp 40 B’Quest, campaigned by Keith Ericson, of San Diego.

Regatta organizers, in an effort to add more diversity and access to the regatta series will welcome the addition of several classes used by international Paralympic sailors: the Hansa 303, Liberty and Martin 16. The initiative is led by Challenged Sailors San Diego, which provides therapeutic and recreational adaptive sailing opportunities for people with disabilities.

On Thursday evening at Coronado YC, Sailing World Magazine’s Dave Reed, will continue his Speaker Series with special guest Andrew Campbell, a San Diego native who has enjoyed an enviable sailing career as a top junior sailor, Olympian and longstanding America’s Cup crew, currently with the New York YC’s American Magic as the critical flight controller of its AC75.

The post Regatta Series Continues in San Diego appeared first on Sailing World.

March and April can be our windiest months in San Diego. They can also be quite cold, so bring a warm hat just in case. I’ve laid out some tips for sailing the Ocean and South Bay courses at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta because each presents different conditions and challenges.

South Bay Course

While the same macro weather scenarios play out in South Bay, this racecourse has some added geographic nuances.

180 degrees TWD: The left still works well in these conditions.

270 degrees TWD: The wind is heated as it blows over the Strand on Coronado Island, which seems to make it “jump” and be more unstable than out in the ocean. The result is good puffs and often shears where boats to weather of you will be able to point higher. Typically, these are not persistent shifts; you can wait it out to get the next shift and puff from the other side. That said, in a westerly, the top left of the course can often be more powerful than the right.

If it is a sea breeze day, and the wind begins to shift to the right, coming from the bridge later in the afternoon, you’ll be torn between the great left pressure early in the beat and often strong right pressure toward the end of the beat. In this condition, you must be heads up and paying attention to what’s playing out on the course. If the current is going out, it will be stronger in the channel and may become a factor if the wind goes far enough right.

Ocean Course

When sailing on the ocean course, the conditions and your strategy will vary based on the wind direction. Here are a few common True Wind Directions (TWD) and other variables to consider.

180 degrees TWD: Ahead of a storm, the San Diego area can get strong southerlies this time of year. In this condition, the left typically tends to pay out more often than the right. Be prepared for big waves and adjust your rig tune, trim, and crew weight placement accordingly.

220 to 230 degrees TWD: From this direction, you might experience a local phenomenon called the “Catalina Eddy.” Be sure to tune into the morning weather brief for greater detail if this wind direction is in the forecast. These conditions may break down later in the day and shift west.

250- to 265 degrees TWD: This direction can be one of the most challenging. Often accompanied by gray overcast weather, you’ll see the pressure and shifts roll through the racecourse all day long. Sail for pressure and stay on the lifts all day. One side is not typically stronger than the other.

270 degrees TWD: When the westerly sea breeze begins to fill, the left side of the course often has more pressure, but you need to watch for a slow shift to the right. If you are on an outside course, further away from Point Loma, the left can hang in there a bit longer, and being left of the fleet going right can often be a regatta-winning move. If your course is closer to Point Loma, you’ll notice the increased wind and stronger right shift near the point. Getting up to an early right layline can be critical.

A note on waves when the wind around 270 degrees TWD. When the wind is in this quadrant or shifting a bit further right, the waves on port tack come abeam and make steering challenging. Chasing your telltales in this wave state is slow. Rather than steering up and down each wave, sail inside the jib telltales as the crest of the wave hits the boat, then sail slightly over-pressed on the jib telltales as the trough passes under the boat. This should keep you powered up through the tricky waves.

280-degrees or greater TWD: With this wind direction, you’ll want to head right, especially if the course is closer to shore. Better current is near shore and significant right shifts usually roll out from the airbase.

The current Ocean Course typically runs from north to south, is stronger outside, and lighter toward shore. There can be a reverse eddy very near the shore, but the race committee does not sail us that close to shore. With an ebb tide, you’ll want to watch the current line coming out of the bay (often marked by extra kelp in the water). And speaking of kelp…yes, there’s plenty of it out there. You absolutely need a kelp plan onboard. Kelp sticks are not enough; assign a crew to look for the stuff constantly. Nothing is slower than backing down on a windward beat to remove kelp.

The post Local Knowledge for the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego appeared first on Sailing World.

To find the inspirational story of this year’s Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta in San Diego, one need not look past the J/24 fleet scratch sheet. Last year’s fleet of five nearly tripled thanks to good-old-fashioned grass-roots growth and the arrival of “older” fixer-uppers to San Diego marinas. It was one of the larger fleets of the weekend’s races.

The local ring leader is one William Ramacciotti, who races Hull No. 1130 out of San Diego’s Southwestern Yacht Club. Ramacciotti has been around the one-design racing sailing scene for a long time, but he only recently bought his J/24—never intending to be the spark plug.

His original purchase intent was local handicap club racing in the bay, but as he met other area J/24 owners his aspirations and connections grew wider. “It has started to snowball a bit,” Ramacciotti says. “A couple of crew members that sailed with me for a few years decided to buy their own boats.”

These new crew-turned-owners include Veronica Hebdon Hallauer and Lindsey Wells, who Ramacciotti says were novice sailors and now skippers of their own raceboats. Wells found her J/24, named Taco Thief, in upstate New York and trailered it back to San Diego. Hallauer discovered her bright yellow boat, Limocello, in Santa Barbara and purchased it in the blink of an eye. The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta in San Diego would be their first big-fleet experience.

“We finally stepped Lindsey’s mast [in early March] and put the boat  in the water for the first time,” Ramacciotti says. “She’s excited to have her own program and to figure out how to put it all together, and it’s the same for Veronica. Both of them really had zero sailing experience before.”

Ramacciotti says there are now seven boats—and growing—in the local fleet. The teams are strictly weekend warriors from all different sailing experiences, and there’s a communal approach to working on each other’s boats, borrowing parts, trailers and advice. “Most of the guys are looking for and using second-hand sails,” he says, “and most boats are all from the late 70s and early 80s [including his own].”

Some have been improved with the normal and modernizing modifications to the deck layout, removing outdated hardware and the such, and all are kept in the water with use of bottom paint. Only one of the 12 boats registered is of the modern J/24 generation, so Ramacciotti is excited to have a playing field far more level than most J/24 regattas elsewhere. This may be a vintage fleet in San Diego, he says, but that’s what makes it even better. It’s good, inexpensive fun.

Everyone was super excited about the regatta, he says. Some of the new teams were a bit apprehensive because this was the biggest fleet they’ve raced in yet, but after two days of races on South San Diego Bay, Wells kept her finishes to mostly top 10 and finished on a high, with fourth in the final race. In the end, Deke Klatt’s Jaded, from up the coast, was the top team after posting a nearly flawless scoreline, but there only 15-points between Jaded and the sixth-placed Jedi of Gareth Jones. The racing was good, the gathering of new friends and class members even better, boding well for an even larger J/24 Weekend Warrior gathering in 2023.

The post A J/24 Classics Revival In San Diego appeared first on Sailing World.

Final Results

The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego finished just as it started—with brilliant sunshine and a building sea breeze, conditions that local sailors expect this time of year. The ideal racing conditions also allowed the race committees of San Diego and Coronado yacht clubs to complete a full set of races over the three-day regatta.

For Eduardo Saenz and his teammates on Nimbus, the three-race final day gave them an opportunity to put up a few more top finishes and win their regatta by a considerable 12-point margin over Jeff Janov’s Minor Threat. For Saenz and his teammates from Mexico City, Mexico, the key was working the wind shifts and, of course, staying out of trouble.

“This was our third time sailing J/70s in San Diego,” Saenz said, “And taking the correct shifts was key. Our tactician, Carlos Robles, was mostly correct…he almost didn’t miss a shift.”

Saenz said he and his teammates, using the regatta as a training session for the upcoming J/70 Mexican National Championship, were conservative on the starting line and focused on positioning themselves in clear-wind lanes as soon as possible. The courses were short, so clear air was difficult to come by. Downwind, Saenz said, they felt slower than some of the other top boats, but upwind they were even on speed. Their race-winning gains were made managing the wind.

They were fourth in the first race today, which Dave Ullman and his team on USA 3 won to tighten up the top-three standings, but Nimbus won the second race and that was that—it was their best race of the regatta Saenz said: “We had a bad start and did a quick tack that put us in front, and then we just covered the fleet and the competition. Downwind we were fast in that race and that helped us hold the lead.”

His one go-fast tip after three days of South Bay racing: “Staying in the right mode, never getting too high or too low—just keeping the boat going fast and that’s basically it.”

Boatspeed was also a dominating factor in the International 14 fleet, which Terence Gleeson and his top-shelf crew JP Barns used to run away with the International 14 division and the West Coast Championship title with three wins on the final day.

“We had to fight for one of them, one of them we horizoned, and the last one we hit a light spot, right before the last jibe to the finish and almost put it in,” Gleeson said. “That would have been a bad way to end it. We were both in the water, scrambling, and thankfully, JP saved it.”

Gleeson got his new boat, Dunder Pit, before the onset of the Covid pandemic and used the time away from sailing to make the boat what he says is now “absolutely perfect.”

“We tried to make this one special,” Gleeson said. “We have a new rig, new sails and new foils which are super important. These are all more important than hull shape.”

The new rudder foil, he said, makes the boat challenging to sail, but when they have the boat perfectly tuned, “it’s a world of a difference.”

“[The rudder] is thinner and smaller and being able to manage the boat on the smaller rudder is really difficult,” Barnes said. “It’s much less forgiving. We’ve worked hard; it’s been a cumulative process of boat handling development that has allowed us to be able to handle this small of a rudder.”

Sharing the same racecourse were the regatta’s Flying Dutchman and Formula 18 catamaran sailors. Paul Scoffin and Pavel Ruzica won nine of 10 races, demonstrating why they are regular faces at the top of Flying Dutchman world championships. In the Formula 18s, James Orkin and Mike Roeser won in similar fashion, winning all but one of the class’s eight races.

“Our goal going to the regatta was getting reacquainted with the boat,” Orkins said. “We haven’t been doing as much racing so it was to get into the groove we had 3 years ago.”

Orkin said that while his scoreline would indicate an easy win, the shifty conditions on South Bay were plenty challenging.

“Some people like to bang the corners and I like sailing the shifts,” Orkin said, “this is where having a good crew is key—he looks for the holes in the course.”

Deke Klatt’s J/24 Jaded won six of seven races, and Klatt says Ventura-based team was liking the flat water and moderate breezes over the weekend. Tactically, he said, getting to and winning the left side of the course paid dividends. “It was challenging,” Klatt said, “and today [Sunday] was about protecting the left for the big puffs and keeping tabs on the other boats.”

Klatt’s MVP, he added, was his fiancé Claudia Gottstein, who subbed in at the last minute into the genoa-trimmer’s role—not an easy job on the J/24.

“Today we made it hard on her,” Klatt said. “I think we tacked eight or nine times on one beat, but that was key—to be able to tack and go where we wanted.”

On the ocean course, the ever-competitive Etchells fleet sailed the second event of its 2022 Bill Bennett West Coast Championship. The top-three places went right down to the final race, with Thomas Carruthers, Bill Hardesty, and Jeff Reynolds putting one final win into their score line to tip the tie-breaker with Chris Busch’s Elizabeth.

Chick Pyle’s team on the Beneteau 36.7 Kea sailed a perfect six-win regatta to earn their 11th Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series victory. Warren Gross’s Silhouette was equally dominant in the Beneteau 40.7 class with five of six race wins. Bruce Stone, helming Stewart Cannon’s J/105 J-OK put up three race wins to take the class by 4 points.

In the seven-boat ORC division, Rudolph Hasl’s team on the impressive J/145 Palaemon was flawless, winning all six of its races to earn top boat and ultimately the regatta’s big title. Selected as the Helly Hansen Sailing World San Diego Regatta’s Overall Winner, Hasl and his team earned a berth in the Helly Hansen Sailing World Caribbean Championship in October, where they will compete against other top winners from the series.

The post Team Palaemon Wins ORC and Overall Title At San Diego Stunner appeared first on Sailing World.

Second Wind may be just the perfect name possible for the La Dow family Etchells. Back in his heyday at San Diego YC, father Andy was a standout sailor, particularly in the local Etchells fleet, and always a top finisher in the big fleets of years past, including three class wins in the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series in San Diego. While dad was excelling in the elegant and cranky keelboat, his two sons, Jake and Will, were doing the same in the Sabots, and then 420s and onward to college where they too had standout careers.

And while this was happening later in life, dad got busy in the real estate business and the Etchells eventually sat idle on its trailer, collecting pollen and Santa Ana dust. The pandemic winds would blow Will home from San Francisco to San Diego, the young software salesman now able to work remotely. Will says racing with his father was something they’d discussed for a long time, but only when he moved back to San Diego did they consider it more seriously. And soon enough, the three of them would find themselves together, shoulder to shoulder on the side deck of the family Etchells, its long and pointy bow rising and falling over humping Pacific swells. The boat had sat for three years, and here they were, together for the first time, a new team who’s chemistry is simply its blood.

Their first event would be the 2021 Etchells Pacific Coast Championship. Will would skipper, dad would handle the bow. “It all went well,” was dad’s assessment. “The takeaway was that we had some potential here.”

Potential indeed: With an older boat desperate for the latest upgrades, and a set of outdated rags, they won their second regatta (without Jake, however, who was off racing J/70s). “My biggest concern was time in the boat,” La Dow says, “but I quickly realized we were going to be a force to be reckoned with, right out of the gates.”

An lo-and-behold they absolutely enjoy sailing with each other.

“I will say, it is a privilege to be able to sail with my dad on the boat,” says La Dow. “It’s cool that we’ve both had success in sailing separately and can now do it together. Through sailing we are both able to compete at a high level and spend some quality bonding time together. There have been times where we’ve been in a tough spot [on the racecourse] where it may not feel like bonding, but we always enjoy it.”

In the three years since the La Dows packed away Second Wind, much has changed with the infinitely tunable Etchells—mast setup, sail design, and especially control systems—so the task at hand is for them to get the boat up to snuff. With so many top-shelf teams operating out of the San Diego YC boat park these days, there’s knowledge and sharing aplenty, says young La Dow.

“The fleet is really open these days and welcoming to new people that join the fleet. At the last event, Chris Busch (fleet captain) hosted a debrief with all the top guys and got them to share what’s working—all these different things that, in the past, would be very secretive among certain boats. It’s been democratized across the fleet to get the level up so there’s more competition and the racing is more challenging and enjoyable.”

The La Dow’s Second Wind is hull No. 985, is considered an older boat. “But the hull seems fast enough,” La Dow says. They’ve been working with local a local boat servicing company run by Chuck Eaton and Patrick Powell, which specializes in upgrading Etchells. They’ve add a jib in-hauler system, a mainsheet fine tune, a mast ram and shims and an above-deck adjustable forestay.

“We’ve had to move quite a bit of hardware,” La Dow says. “It was a bit of work, but it’s done and ready to go.”

For the 2022 Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta in March, they will sail four-up, with La Dow’s longtime mate and multi-national champion Scott Sinks, as well as a pickup junior from the club.

Everyone was excited when the La Dows came back to the fleet and Will is doing his best to lure his peers and sailing buddies into the class. “It’s a really fun boat to sail,” he says. “It is kind of like a keelboat version of the Club 420 as far as driving it, and it’s fun to be able to get out of the small boats and do some open ocean racing.”

The post Passing The Helm on the La Dow Family Etchells appeared first on Sailing World.

Preliminary Results

The Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series San Diego kept on rolling…in the ocean swells off Point Loma with the big hardware and the speed sailing on South Bay delivering maximum races on the day.

Only three races into the Etchells series at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta San Diego, Don Jesberg’s Viva leads with a three-race top-three run with a 3-point cushion Chris Busch’s team on Elizabeth, and from there on, it’s all tight at the top after a classic San Diego race day that started off light but settled right in once marine layer broke and the sea breeze arrived in full late afternoon glory.

On the ocean courses, where the low swells were running and the breeze was shifting, the regatta’s other big-boat classes got underway as well, including the J/105s, Beneteau 40.7s and 36.7s, and the ORC handicap fleet. True to form, Chick Pyle’s Kea, a 10-time winner of the regatta, put up three wins in the 36.7s while Warren Gross’s Silhouette did the same in the 40.7s. Chuck Driscoll’s Juiced and George Scheel finished their day with the J/105s tied with 9-points apiece, and Rudolph Hasl’s J/145 Palaemon was unbeatable under ORC.

For the South Bay Course fleets, the second day of racing found James Orkins and Michael Risoer continuing their winning streak in the Formula 18 catamaran division, as did Paul Scoffin and Pavel Ruzicka in the Flying Dutchman fleet. JP Barnes and Terrence Gleeson padded their lead with two seconds and a win in the last race of the day for the International 14s who are contesting their West Coast Championship.

Eduardo Saenz and his teammates on the J/70 Nimbus piled on the points in its fleet and now sit comfortably atop the leaderboard with fewer races to sail tomorrow, the final day of the regatta. Deke Klatt’s J/24 Jaded sits atop its fleet after one day of racing, as does James Baurley’s Viper 640 #hmb and Mark Allen’s Junta in the Ultimate 20s.

The North Sails Rally Race fleet sailed a roughly 13-mile distance race dodging plenty of boat traffic, wind shifts and navy vessels, and at the end of the day, Craig and Lisa Leweck’s classy Alerion Express 28 cruised to a Rally win, as did Mark Berdan’s Farrier Trimaran UnEven Keel, in the multihull division.

The post All Fleets Go All In At San Diego Regatta appeared first on Sailing World.