Oct 10, 2022 @ 01:45:11 EDT
Wind can be unpredictable in Santa Barbara, California and as the week leading up to the Fall Dinghy PCC’s was riddled with drifters and 85 degree weather, it looked like it might be some slow racing. The unpredictability proved to be true as a front blew through on Friday and Saturday that brought breeze of 16-18 knots gusting well into the high 20’s from the West-Northwest and temperatures in the mid 50's. The Varsity course sailed out into the ocean Saturday morning while the JV stayed nestled under the Santa Barbara Pier for protection. As breeze levels grew, it became apparent that there were not enough resources to monitor the JV course that was plagued with capsizes, so those sailors were sent in. The Varsity sailors faced their share of struggles as large rollers and big puffs would knock down several boats at a time. The Race Committee opted to move the Varsity course under the protection of the pier which proved to be just as challenging a venue with less waves but even bigger wind shifts. The offshore breeze had been providing the fleet with 30 degree wind shifts fairly often but once under the pier the shifts became even larger seeing 40 degree plus wind shifts that would send the fleet into auto-tacks.
Even with the difficulties of keeping the races moving along, the Race Committee succeeded in getting 8 full sets in for the three-division Varsity on Saturday. Stanford took the day with a healthy lead followed by Hawaii.
The windblown and weary race committee and racers were pleasantly surprised with a mellow but steadily building breeze on Sunday from the Southwest; a more typical direction in Santa Barbara. Once the racers were off shore, the races started flowing much easier than the previous day. Wind shifts were within a reasonable range and as the breeze built to around 8-12 knots, the race committee pushed harder to squeeze in as many races as possible on the shorter Sunday schedule. With most teams settled into who was sailing the day, all three fleets were freed up to ditch the rotation schedule and just sail hard. The RC managed to get six more sets in which brought the grand total to 42 races sailed and 14 sets for the three division varsity over the course of the weekend. Stanford ran away with the event followed by University of Hawaii.
A huge thank you to Carson Shevitz, Pat Toole, George Witter, Sarah Schaupeter, and UCSB alumni Lauren Bell, Krystal Treiberg, Keely Scates, and Willie McBride for helping out on race committee. Thank you to Stanford for providing an extra support boat as well.
The following chart shows the relative rank of the teams as of the race indicated. Note that the races are ordered by number, then division, which may not represent the order in which the races were actually sailed.
The first place team as of a given race will always be at the top of the chart. The spacing from one team to the next shows relative gains/losses made from one race to the next. You may hover over the data points to display the total score as of that race.
