The Coastal Cup returns to the beautiful city of Santa Barbara for the first time in years. Though little more than an hour north of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara is an oasis of peace and quiet on the warm, sandy California coast. The Spanish architecture and rugged mountains sloping down to the sea combine to give the city a distinctively Mediterranean flavor, and make it a tourist favorite.
Racing down the coast to Santa Barbara is fun and challenging, featuring a wide range of conditions - from the unpredictable upwind beat out past Land's End, the white knuckle spinnaker reaching off the treacherous Pt. Conception and Pt. Sur, to ghosting in the light morning breezes through the Channel Islands to finish off lovely, sublime Santa Barbara (America's self-proclaimed Cote'd'Azur). There is truly something to satisfy every sailing appetite. The race attracts a wide variety of boats from across the sailing spectrum, from the famous to the un-noteworthy, from the outrageously fast to the biggest pigs one could ever design for the IOR (remember those pinched-ended, swap-ends-in-a-second monsters?).
The J fleet will feature a remarkably strong contingent of offshore warriors with resumes as long as any tattooed, Harley Davidson riding, hot mama. Leading the charge will surely be one of the baddest of the bunch, Tom Holthus' Transpac-winning J/145 BAD PAK. Not to be intimidated by anyone is the diminutive Dr. Laura Schlessinger racing her renowned J/125 WARRIOR (is she the ultimate baddest sailing gurl?). Andy Costello's bright red flyer, the J/125 DOUBLE TROUBLE will be giving everyone a run for the money, too, no wall-flowers those guys, who consider a 30 knot windy day simply a walk-in-the-park on-board their heavily campaigned J/125. Howard Turner's J/109 SYMMETRY can bring these high-testosterone speedsters serious heart-burn given the right conditions, a nearly unbeatable boat if you give them all-around weather. And, if the race becomes a sleigh-ride, the J/105 offshore has proven time and again its a complete pain-in-the-neck for the savviest of salty dogs hanging ten surfing off the most ginormous Pacific swells imaginable...watch out for Peter Molnar's J/105 POSEIDON...could be a giant killer. For more Coastal Cup sailing information.