Sep 7, 2023 @ 13:03:57 EDT
wind 3-6k NE-SW; temp.65-55F
It's been a rosey New Year for Stanford. Four days after whipping Wisconson, 20-14, in the Rose Bowl football game in nearby Pasadena,the Cardinal are in contention in the 28th annual Rose Bowl Regatta after the first day of racing at Long Beach Saturday.
They'll go into the last races Sunday in second place with 39 points, 13 behind College of Charleston (S.C.) followed by Eckerd College of St. Petersburg, Fla., 41;Roger Williams of Bristol, R.I, 42, and top-ranked Georgetown of Washington, D.C., 53. Defending champion Boston College is seventh at 59, behind Old Dominion at 56.
Stanford coach John Vandemoer said, "It's great to be able to go to the football game and see our team win. We hope we can do the same. It played great defense."
So did the Cardinal sailors.
"We didn't win any races," Vandemoer said, "but with 30 teams you can afford mistakes." The teams are all Southern Californians: Kevin Laube with crew Michelle Catanya and Kieran Chung with crew Haley Kirk.
As expected, the wind was light at 3-6 knots from southwest and the air temperature had chilled to the mid-50s by the time the day's racing ended with a colorful sun set at 5 o'clock. The boats returned to the docks at ABYC in darkness.
The colleges and high school Gold fleets are sailing two-person 13-foot CFJ dinghies off the Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier in the Long Beach outer harbor. The high school Silver fleet is racing inside Alamitos Bay. Each team has two crews that alternate after every two races.
The second and last day of racing will start at 11 a.m., conditions permitting. The pier will be open to spectators, with concessions and comfort stations available.
The event is based at the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club, hosted by the USC Sailing Team and organized by the US Sailing Center of Long Beach.
Sunday's weather: Wind 11k SW-W; temp. 60-55 F. Stanford sailors come up roses, too; Point Loma powers to 7th RB Regatta win LONG BEACH, Calif.
Contrary to forecasts, there was no precipitation on the windup of the 28th annual Rose Bowl Regatta Sunday ... except for more roses raining down on Stanford University's sailors after they came from behind to steal the championship from College of Charleston.
Even the Cardinal football team didn't make it that dramatic in stuffing Wisconsin, 20-14, in the Rose Bowl football game four days earlier. The sailors had to make up 13 points in only four races to overtake the Cougars from South Carolina, which they did with finishes of 11th (oops), second, third and first among 30 teams.
No less impressive, though, was Point Loma's 21-point runaway over perennial rivals Newport Harbor and Cathedral of San Diego, who shared second place in the 28-team high school Gold division---the Pointers' seventh consecutive title in the event.
The worst news for frustrated rivals: the four Varsity sailors---Kevin Laube, Kiernan Chung, Haley Kirk and Michelle Catania---are a junior, two sophomores and a freshman, in that order.
The Port of Los Angeles/Rancho Palos Verdes team won the 32-team high school Silver division.
It was a chilly but picturesque day with a bright sun ducking in and out of large lumbering clouds, pushed along by a shifty 11-knot westerly breeze stirring modest whitecaps, and a silhouette of Santa Catalina Island 22 miles offshore.
In swapping boats after each two races, some teams---notably perennial high school Gold winner Point Loma from San Diego---also went to their heavyweight crews as the breeze built in the early afternoon. That would be Greer Wattson replacing Rebecca McElvain with skipper Scott Sinks and Trevor Hecht replacing Mercedes McPhee with skipper A.J. Reiter.
The added ballast apparently helped.
Like Stanford, even all of Charleston's crew from South Carolina were Southern California products, as were several other of the east coast schools' competitors. Charleston's A team was skipper Jake Reynolds with crew Katie Dowling; its B crew was alternating skippers Jack Jorgensen and Ryan Davidson with crew Kyle Sutter.
"[Charleston] had a good lead but we were pretty confident," Laube said. "We made up about 20 points in the last race."
Overall, Stanford finished with 67 points to Charleston's 85, followed by defending champion Boston College at 107, No. 1-ranked Georgetown, 111, and Fordham, 115.
Point Loma's unrivaled success in recent years has been under coach Steve Hunt, 37, whose team of 33 sailors runs so deep that he also entered two junior varsity teams, one of which placed eighth, led by Will LaDow, who won his class at the Orange Bowl Regatta in Florida a week earlier.
How long can the Pointers go on like this?
"I think success breeds success," Hunt said. "It's the largest team I've had. We get 15 boats on the water in practice."
The college and high school Gold fleets sailed two-person 13-foot CFJ dinghies off the Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier in the Long Beach outer harbor. The high school Silver fleet raced inside Alamitos Bay. Each team had two crews that alternated after every two races.
The event was based at the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club, hosted by the USC Sailing Team and organized by the US Sailing Center of Long Beach.
| Sym. | Explanation |
|---|---|
| * | Head-to-head tiebreaker |
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.
