J/125 STARK RAVING MAD, J/105 WINGS & J/80 AVET Win Class(San Diego, CA)- This year marked the 40th year of San Diego Yacht Club's signature regatta, the Yachting Cup. This premiere regatta brings together competitive fleet and one-design racing at multiple venues in San Diego.
In
the early years, SDYC's premier regatta, the Yachting Cup, was used
several times as the United States Ton Cup Championship, which served as
a qualifying event for the IOR World Championship. SDYC and its
regatta organizing committee have continued the Ton Cup as part of the
Yachting Cup Regatta weekend experience. The 2012 Ton Cup sailed on
Friday May 4th in a match race format in J/22s provided by SDYC, in La
Playa Basin. The Ton Cup is a standalone match race regatta with its
own prizes. However, competitors also had the opportunity to compete in
one, or both regattas, and win individual and combined regatta prizes.
Congratulations
go out to Team Alchemy on their Friday Ton Cup Match Race victory.
Alchemy defeated the crew from Wings in the final match up. 3rd place
went to Team Stars & Stripes, with their consolation round win over
CC Rider. Remarkably, Will Stout of Team Alchemy was walking the docks
Friday morning, was invited to fill in for a team that dropped out last
minute, and ended up winning the whole event! Ton Cup Sailing photo credits- Bob Betancourt
On
the Offshore racing part of the world, the fleets were broken down into
PHRF handicap racing and one-designs (J/80s, J/105s and J/120s). In
PHRF 2, the big winner was the J/125 STARK RAVING MAD sailed by Jim
Madden with tactician/mainsail trimmer Benny Mitchell at his side.
There was no way you were going to beat their boat speed and scoreline
of 1-1-1-1-1 for 5 pts. And, this was a very tough class to beat with
just six boats sailing with them, including a Puerto Vallarta podium
finisher, the J/125 TIMESHAVER sailed by Viggo Torbensen and a
Newport-Ensenada Race class winner and overall third place winner, the
J/145 RADIO FLYER sailed by Carolyn Parks. Nevertheless, despite
winning all races on elapsed time, it was hard for the big boat,
Carolyn's J/145 RADIO FLYER to hold-off the little speedsters. In the
end, second was the J/125 TIMESHAVER skippered by Viggo Torbensen with a
3-5-2-2-3 for 15 pts. Third was the J/125 RESOLUTE sailed by Tim Fuller
to a 5-2-4-4-2 for 17 pts. And, fifth was Carolyn's J/145 RADIO FLYER
(please see a great story by one of her crew about the Newport 2
Ensenada Race experience below).In PHRF 4 Class, another Newport 2 Ensenada race class winner was Larry Leveille's J/29 masthead RUSH STREET. After some tough racing around the cans in a very tough class, Larry's crew still managed to eke out a fourth place.
Congratulations
to John Laun and J/120 CAPER team who hoisted the Yachting Cup as the
overall regatta winner and scored first in the ten boat J/120 class.
John and the capable CAPER crew knocked out a 3-4-2-2-1 for 12 pts to
win by 3 pts. Second was J-ALMIGHTY sailed by Mike Hatch with a
1-1-4-5-4 scoreline for 15 pts. Third was past Yachting Cup Regatta
Champion CC RIDER sailed by Chuck Nichols with a 2-2-3-6-7 tally for 20
pts. Rounding out the top five were Gary Winton's SHENANIGANS in fourth
and POLE DANCER sailed by the Tom & Terri Manok family team in
fifth.
With
their eye on the ball to be contenders in the J/105 North Americans
later in the fall in San Diego waters, the fifteen boat J/105 class had
some excellent racing. However, as they have done in the past, the
WINGS team led by Dennis & Sharon Case simply stepped it up a gear,
or two, and simply sailed through the fleet to amass a 1-1-3-1-3 record
for a mere 9 pts. Keeping touch with them was Rick Goebel's SANITY with
a 2-3-7-2-2 score for 16 pts. Third was TRIPLE PLAY (Dave Vieregg),
scoring a 3-2-4-4-12 for 25 pts. Fourth, PERSEVERANCE (Bennet
Greenwald) and fifth DECOLORES (Sean O'Keefe).Like their counterparts in the J/120 and J/105 classes, one team managed to put it all together and sail a strong series. At the top of the pack was Curt Johnson's AVET with four 1sts and a 3rd for 7 pts, enough to win by four pts. Second was Bob Hayward's BLUE JAY and third was Kurt Wiese's MONKEY SHOULDER. Yachting Cup Sailing- JOY and Friends photo credits For more Yachting Cup and Ton Cup sailing results
