Light to Medium winds prevailed on this beautiful Saturday in Newport beach. The ocean race courses were dedicated to the Schock 35, Santana 30/30 and Santana 20 fleets. The S20 fleet was the largest at 19 boats. I was able to observe only the second race but it was a beautiful sight watching the colorful spinnakers coming down to the leeward mark. As one of my companions observed, "this beats being in a country club". It sure was but beyond the bright colors of the kites, it was the excellent competition that caught people's attention. It certainly seemed more interesting than the Schock 35 races.

Consider this story to be just a snippet of the racing on this Saturday. I was able to observe just part of race 2.

Before the start of race 2, you could see that the top boats led by Gordon Wanlass (Gremlin) were staking out the pin end. The rest of the fleet didn't seem to have that strong of a desire to be on the left side of the course but clearly Gremlin had it planned out. Cal Trans and Mini-Me were also on the pin end next to Gremlin. After a good clean start with no OCS calls, Cal Trans and Mini-Me immediately went on port tack shortly after the start and claimed the right side of the course. They took themselves close to the starboard layline. Gremlin stuck it out on starboard and took control of the left side near the port layline. Altitude Sickness straggled the course and stayed in the middle, a conservative approach. At first, it seemed like Wanlass took a flyer. The bulk of the fleet hung between the right and middle of the course with just a few staying on the left with Gremlin. Then, as they came closer to the weather mark, the left shift came giving advantage to Gremlin, which then tacked to port close to the port layline and kept getting lifted. The lead boats then headed towards the center of the course and Gremlin crossed ahead of Cal Trans and consolidated its lead over the rest of the fleet.

Gremlin rounded the weather mark by itself with a substantial lead. Cal Trans was next in line. Then to make things exciting, Mini-Me followed closely by Altitude Sickness busted into the mark on port tack inside of one boat length of the weather mark. But Mini-Me was not able to cross and had to make a big sudden duck. That cost them a position as Altitude sickness, right behind Mini-Me, was able to tack immediately behind Cal Trans and transition into a smooth rounding.

Positions did not seem to change much downwind in the next leg for the lead boats who all took the left side of the course, covering Gremlin. Unexpectedly, Quitcherbitchin (Adam Kline) rounded in third on the left mark so they did make ground downwind. They appeared to have come from the right side of the course so they had the favored side downwind. However, all the other boats that I saw took the right mark at the leeward gate which showed that at least the leaders preferred the right side for the upwind leg. It will be interesting to see how this finished.  The final third of the fleet came rushing towards the leeward gate all headed towards the same mark and some shouting and screaming punctuated the otherwise disaster free rounding.

I didn't see how this race ended. It will be interesting to find out. See the race results at www.nhyc.org for the end of this story and the other races (which will probably be posted after the regatta is finished).

Overall, it was gratifying to see the excellent boat handling that in my eyes (maybe biased) seemed better as a group than the other fleets racing on this day.

rc