Friday, December 7, 2018

Stanford Dominates The BIG Sail Regatta!

J/22 Big Sail- Stanford versus UC Berkeley (San Francisco, CA)- In anticipation of the college football rivalry game on November 17 between the Stanford University Cardinals and the University of California- Berkeley Bears, the 15th annual The BIG Sail was held between the schools on San Francisco Bay. With five divisions competing on a slalom course in J/22s, Stanford took the title by winning four of the five matches. Hosting the event in their matched fleet of J/22s was the St Francis YC.

In the Varsity Division (e.g. “pro’s”), it was a nip and tuck battle.  Each school taking a win in the first two races. However, in the “rubber match” in race 3, it was Stanford all the way home to the finish line to take the victory in this prestigious division.

In the Women’s Alumni Division, it was not the “cat fight” that everyone imagined it might be between two very well-sailed all-women’s teams.  It was all Stanford, taking the division with a 2-0 record.

The Young Alumni Division was no different than the Women’s group. Stanford ran the table on U-Cal again with a 2-0 record.

It was a different story in the Master Alumni Division. This was the only “shining path” to victory seen by the rocket scientists at U-Cal Berkeley, taking their Stanford luddites to task with a 2-0 pasting.

In the end, it was all up to the Grandmasters Alumni Division to determine if U-Cal could save face, the northerners versus the southerners on San Francisco Bay.  It might as well be called “the Civil War”!  As some of these old guys may be old enough to remember what Grandpa told them about those crazy colonialists in the East.  Nevertheless, it was the Stanford Cardinals senior AARP cardholders and collectors of Medicare/ Medicaid that took home all the marbles in this division. Perhaps something to be said for living and going to school in warm, farm country down in south Bay!  For more The BIG Sail regatta information Add to Flipboard Magazine.