2024 Cal-25 Nationals – Comment

The Cal 25 National Championship Regatta has been struggling of late partially due to the Covid Pandemic and the demise of the Long Beach Fleet.  The responsibility of putting it on has fallen to the remaining fleets in Detroit and Annapolis.  Changing it off every year has put a burden on them that has proven difficult to overcome,  resulting in no championship held in 2023.

Having said that,  this year the Annapolis fleet stepped up and elected to host the event.  And what a spectacular job of hosting they did.   Everything was planned and executed to absolute perfection.  The event was held on Chesapeake Bay, Sept 27th, 28th & 29th.  

We elected to compete which meant that our boat “One More Time” had to be towed the full 2728 miles there and back.  Luckily we made it both ways with few problems. Sailing on the Chesapeake  can be a lot of things but “boring” isn’t one of them.  Anyone who’s sailed there knows that in any three day period you can expect, and probably will get, a myriad of conditions.   During this trip we competed in rain, a nasty squall, light wind, medium wind and no wind.   Unfortunately very little sun. Not bad, huh?  

Fourteen boats showed up on the line with four of them being from out of town. The racing was exquisite.  Back and forth, giving and taking with no quarter asked or given and little complaining or grousing (there’s always at least one person). Just a bunch of great sailors going at it tooth and nail.    A boat from Detroit took four bullets on the first day and ended up not winning the regatta.  Go figure.  We lost two races to the ultimate winner by an aggregate total of about eighteen inches.  These are but two examples of the closeness of the competition.  

We concluded the racing with a very satisfactory bullet that resulted in obtaining an overall extremely close third place finish.  Not bad for a crew consisting of mostly a son, three grandsons and  two persons close enough to be considered family anyway. The winner was “Patriot” a boat from Detroit skippered by, John McAllister, a dear friend.

My thanks to the LB yachting committee for their assistance.  Couldn’t have done it without you. Let me conclude by stating that if ever you get the opportunity to represent Long Beach Yacht Club at a distant regatta,  don’t pass on the opportunity.  You will be rewarded in a myriad of ways.  

Art Melendres
US#1  One More Time