Long Beach
Cal 25 FLEET CHAMPIONSHIP

The Shoreline Yacht Club hosted our Cal 25 Fleet Championship along with their Cal20 Fever regatta.
This was the second year in a row that we were able to team up with them for our fleet championship. Just like last year, they did a great job again. Conditions were very tricky with gusty and shifty winds all afternoon. We had three boats come out on Sunday Iguana, One Time and Tiburon. Go Big Daddy came out on Saturday in hopes of getting a jump on the competition, trouble was nobody was there! We missed them on Sunday.

The first race started in pretty breezy conditions with all three boats getting a good start. The wind continued to build as we got to the weather mark. One Time first followed by Tiburon and Iguana, all very close. One Time was the first to realize the 40 degree shift and abandoned their kite almost immediately, Tiburon not so much. They were determined the fly the kite, once up it took a few more minutes to realize they were headed in the wrong direction. Down came the kite. Iguana seeing all the mayhem stuck with the jib and got around Tiburon for second. The order did not change. By this time the wind was smoking (literally the sand was blowing so hard on the beach it looked like smoke).

The wind took a heavy toll on the Cal20 fleet with two of their boats sustaining damage due to the conditions. Race committee called the race for the Cal20’s, but the show continued for the 25 fleet. The second race started in heavy breeze but by the time we got to weather there had been another big shift right at the mark coupled with a reduction in velocity of about 8 knots, weird! It was Tiburon first followed by One Time and Iguana. The shift pushed Tiburon down just enough to hit the mark. They immediately spun a 360 and were looking good, until they realized they hadn’t rounded the offset mark (I really hate that mark). Back up to the offset mark and wave to One Time and Iguana as they sailed by. One Time had a comfortable lead and Tiburon chased down Iguana and were bow to stern around the leeward mark. Tiburon could not get around them and again the finish was One Time, Iguana and Tiburon. The last and final race was the closest of the day with Tiburon winning from start to finish and Iguana and One Time finishing in a photo-finish for second and third. Final results: One Time, Iguana and Tiburon. Congratulations to One Time!

Special thanks to Shoreline Yacht Club for staying with the race. We would have completely understood had they abandoned racing for the day given the conditions. However, race committee stuck around just for us and gave us all three races. Those guys rock!

See you guys out on the water…

–Felix Basadre (Nov-15)

Trophy Winners:

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