Saturday, May 14, 2016

Fun Cinco de Mayo Regatta

J/70 Eclispe sailing off Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA)- J/Sailors in Santa Barbara, California know how to have fun. Period.  After all, they do live in what is billed as America’s Riviera along that sliver of coastline between the famous Hollywood hangout of Malibu to the east and the US Navy Missile program off Point Conception to the west.  While there are not many places to go cruising locally, the locals make the most of their amazing sailing conditions, often punctuated by massive Pacific swells rolling in from the northwest from even more ginormous storms in the Gulf of Alaska and their natural sea-breeze that often develops because of the 2,500 ft mountain range just inshore sucking breeze into the stratosphere over the dramatic backdrop of the Santa Ynez Mountains.  By the way, each day is sunny, 50s overnight and mid-70s in the day— all year-round!  Even Oprah approves!

The Santa Barbara Sailing Club hosted the weekend’s Cinco de Mayo sailing festivities and managed to conduct a ten races series for the J/70s and a nine race series for the J/24s.

J/70s sailing off Santa BarbaraWinning the J/70s was Scott Deardorff’s CAKE with five 1sts in the scoreboard for a 14 pts net series.  That was quite an accomplishment to beat out a former J/24 North American Champion, Pat Toole’s incredibly talented crew on his J/70 THREE BIG DOGS, with 22 pts net.  Third was Andrew Nunn’s pretty, shiny black ECLIPSE with 29 pts and three 1st places to their credit!  Fourth and fifth, respectively, were taken by Steve Hendricks’ MONKEY HOUSE and Mike Wolfe’s SHARK TOOTH.

The J/24s were seeing some fresh blood and activity locally.  Winning class was Deke Klatt’s JADED with 9 pts net, a virtual blitzkrieg of the fleet.  However, behind him it was a pitched battle for the balance of the top five.  Ultimately, sailing better than the rest was Tom Tunberg’s BULLET team, taking 2nd with 21 pts.  Third was Jim Baurley’s CRITTER with 24 pts, fourth Ches Upham’s YOUNG FOOLS and fifth Susan Taylor’s TAKE FIVE team from California YC (note- Susan has won the SoCal J/24 Champs and West Coasts in the past, a measure of how good these new young teams are!).  Sailing photo credits- Sharon Green/ Ultimate Sailing.  For more Cinco de Mayo Regatta sailing information