(Newport Beach, CA)- The Long Point Race Week was this year hosted by
Newport Harbor Yacht Club in collaboration with Balboa Yacht Club. It’s
is considered one of the highlights of the SoCal offshore sailing
calendar in mid-August. Here’s a report from J/125 TIMESHAVER owner,
Viggo Torbensen:“July 3rd at 10:35am the email rolled in from the NHYC Race Office, the request for invitation had been opened, the race was on to secure a spot, be one of the 40 lucky boat owners being accepted by NHYC to race in this stunning event. I was careless and waited until 2PM before I sent "Timeshaver's" request for invitation, the list was already 35 boats deep. The Long Point Race Week event is one of the best kept secrets in sailboat racing and the capacity of 40 boats is reached quickly every year. A very special event where racing is first and foremost, but good times ashore at the outstations on the beaches of Moonstone and Whites Cove is a close second.
An exquisite fleet of 40 boats vying for the overall winner of the historic Long Point Race Week trophy. At the top of the list STP65 "Bad Pack" skippered by Tom Holthus to Alan Andrew's 38 "Doubletime". Too many fast boats to mention in between, pretty much the "creme de la creme" of SoCal racing. Eleven J-Boats on the line, in division 2 -my own boat "Timeshaver" J125, and "Derivative" J125 skippered by Mark Surber. Division 3 sported "Innocent Merritment J160 the reaching machine, J133 "Picante" and "Tango", the four J120's were stacked in division 4 "J Almighty", "Adios", "Shenanigans" and "Pole Dancer" together with ultra shiny "Marisol" the J124, Seth need to share with us his choice or wax and finally "Patriot" J44.
Friday the fleet was sent off to the island from the water outside the Santa Ana river, a ways up the coast from the Newport Harbor jetty. The trick is always to find the right time to make the crossing, 8-12 knots of breeze moderate shifts, we started with our light #1, later changed the the heavy#1 and took off, we found ourselves racing boat for boat with Chris Hemans in his IRC46 "Varuna", we were quite happy with the company. Long story short we ended up about a mile too far west on the course before we tacked over. "Derivative" had tacked about twenty minutes sooner than us. Mid channel, we started seeing 280-290 and 15 knots and were hoping for the anticipated shift to go 310, it did go 310 and briefly 320, but not until we were a mile from the finish. "Derivative" crossed ahead of us pretty much on the line and took 4th in class and 12 in fleet. We took a modest 20 in the fleet and a disastrous 9th of 11 in class. "Elixir" N/M 50 corrected on everybody with "Pyewacket" Andrews 70 skippered by Roy Disney in second and "Bolt" one of the two TP52's in third.
Saturday sported a race from Long Point up the coast to Ship Rock and back. AP went up right at 1PM and we hung around in beautiful sunshine waiting for the anticipated afternoon breeze to fill in. RC decided to shorten the course and we all followed RC up the coast as the breezed filled in nicely to 10-14 knots straight down the coast. Before the RC had a chance to drop the marks and get the first start of division 4 on the course the wind started lifting 40-60 degrees. This made the velocity super unstable as the wind came from shore, heated by a giant hot rock called Catalina. The shorted course up to Ship Rock proved disastrous for many, others were banking on luck rather than skills and got away. We were sort of in the middle, not taking any flyers, making constant adjustments to keep the boat going. Right at the Ship rock we experienced a full conversion, many boats struggled to get by in no breeze, Alan Andrew got pushed within 10 feet of the Ship Rock, had his motor on, but never in gear, it was a close call. Now for the better part of the race, we were back in the breeze 12-15 knows running the A2 down the coast back to Long Point, we were exchanging gybes with SC50 "Horizon", few miles from the finish "Horizon" gybed away right when we got headed and the velocity increased a few knots now to 16-17. We finished on as full plane. Took first in class and 2 in fleet. "Bolt" took the fleet honor, "Varuna" in third. We had moved our way back into the mix. Bullets matter, we need one more.
Sunday we race back to Newport, same scenario as Saturday, AP up at 1PM zero breeze. This time the course cannot be shortened, it's sail or fuel back to the mainland. The lovely afternoon started filling in right before two o'clock. We picked the pin end of the line, wanting to get away from the big boats in our class, we got it surprisingly easy and right at the gun. Shortly thereafter consolidating a bit to weather we set the zero, the next five miles defined the race, we were red lining at 105-108% and stretched nicely, doing 9.8-10 knots of boat speed in 9.6 knots of breeze at 80 degrees apparent. A3 and staysail for mid-channel, kept thing under control, we were keeping up with most, ended up winning the last race running with our A2 and split 3rd in fleet with "Bud" the other TP52. Mark Surber "Derivative" had run a much lower course than us and came screaming in to the finish, they took 4th in class.”
As a result of TIMESHAVER’s bullet in the third race, they claimed top honors in Division 2 followed by Mark Surber’s J/125 DERIVATIVE in fourth place overall.
The Division 3 teams saw John Lyon’s magnificent J/160 INNOCENT MERRIMENT from San Diego YC start out with a bullet and finished second overall, just one point back from the top of the podium! Third, and also winning a race, was Doug Jorgensen’s J/133 PICANTE.
The Division 4 crews were just about over-run by J/Teams, ultimately taking 6 of the top 10 spots. Top J/crew was Paul Stemler’s J/44 PATRIOT from Newport Harbor YC, taking 3rd overall. In fourth was Seth Hall’s J/124 MARISOL. The next four spots- 6th to 9th- were occupied by J/120s. In 6th was Mike Hatch’s ALMIGHTY, 7th was Peter Bretschger’s ADIOS, 8th was Gary Winton’s SHENANIGANS and 9th was Tom & Terri Manok’s POLE DANCER. For more Long Point Race Week sailing information
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