J/109 ELECTRA Zaps Fleet(Los Angeles, CA)- The 82nd SCYA Midwinter Regatta had its fair share of drama this past weekend. A massive storm system rolled across southern California Saturday bringing with it God's lightning show and waterspouts nearby. That meant the race committee abandoned racing Saturday afternoon when a waterspout was sighted and an electrical storm with heavy rain crashed across the harbor.
There were more than 600 boats competing along the Southern California coast with entrants coming from as far east as Arizona. Alamitos Bay YC alone had 59 boats in nine classes, enjoying brilliant sunshine on what someone described as "a chamber of commerce day," although the wind never topped 7 knots and thermometers flirted with 60 degrees---balmy by current U.S. weather patterns. Other than, of course, Midwest-like tornado's, water spouts, epic light shows in the sky and driving, torrential rain. Fun, eh?
As
for racing action, on Saturday the breeze of 5-8 knots bounced back and
forth making it tough for the teams to find fastest way around course.
After only two of three scheduled races, the line squall roared across
the race area, forcing abandonment of racing. "On Saturday we had 40
degree wind shifts," said one competitor, "and it was all we could do to
keep up with the shifts. Sunday was much more steady. We went left all
day long and it was a pretty good day to be going left!" Sunday had
more wind with 8-12 knots throughout the day and the seas had calmed
down allowing the boats to focus more on racing each other rather than
the weather.After the dust settled on the course area, John Snooks J/120 JIM from Long Beach YC finished third in PHRF A Class. And, following on his earlier season success, Tom Brott's J/109 ELECTRA from Seal Beach YC sailed to a hard-fought second overall in PHRF B Class while Scott McDaniels' J/105 OFF THE PORCH was fourth in class.
In the J/80 one-design class, Curt Johnson on AVET showed their transom to the fleet most of the time, finishing first with a 2-1-1-1 record for 5 points. Second was Peter Arpesella's BLUE JAY with a 1-2-2-3 record for 8 points. Coming into the bronze position on the podium was Jerry Kaye on MisQue with a 3-3-3-2 record for 11 points. For more SCYA Midwinters sailing information- http://www.abyc.org or http://www.lbyc.org and see some more sailing photos here- Sailing Photo credits- Dennis St. Onge aka- DA Woody