Sep 8, 2021 @ 11:00:19 EDT
The Fall Pacific Coast Championship brought once again unpredictable conditions leading up to the day of the event. Forecasts that called for strong weekend breeze early in the week changed radically to drifter predictions the day before. But per Santa Barbara standards, whatever was expected was thrown out the window. A completely glassy ocean turned into a west-southwest breeze of about 5 knots just before the scheduled warning time of 10:45am. The day got increasingly more beautiful as it went on with the wind getting up in the 8-12 knot range and shifting right to 235 degrees. Racing was very condensed in the top to middle of the fleet and made for tight mark roundings on the varsity course and somewhat inconsistent finishes from most teams. The three divisions of FJ’s made for easy rotation and racing constantly going on all the way until 4:45pm when the sun began to set and the wind began to die down and shift left to a 210 breeze direction. Boats made it to shore in the slowly dying breeze and derigged as the full moon rose overhead casting light on the fleet.
The RC was able to get off 24 races (8 for each division) on the varsity course and 16 races (8 for each division) on the JV course. There were three protests filed on Saturday with one resulting in a DSQ in the varsity B division and another being disallowed. The third protest was a JV protest and resulted in a DSQ in the B division.
After one day, Stanford leads the three division event with a 19 point lead and UCSB leads the two division event with a 10 point lead. UCSB leads the JV division after one day.
A huge thank you to our volunteer Race Committee, including PRO Kathleen Baushke (who was celebrating her birthday by running races) and co-PRO Carson Shevitz with assistance from Lucas Pierce. Gaucho alumni, John Long (’86), and Willie McBride (‘12) helped with course management.
The second day of the Fall PCC’s brought breeze at 205 degrees starting at 10:30am, yet with a strong up coast current. A couple of general recalls later, a left wind shift to 185 degrees, and some adjustments by the Race Committee and they were able to get the A and B division started. Breeze was lighter on Sunday, with more kelp present and bigger current lines. Still, the RC was able to get off an additional 12 races on the varsity course for a total of 36 races and 12 completed sets.
In the varsity 3 division, Stanford held on to their Saturday lead, narrowly edging out the quickly closing in UCSB Gauchos by one point. Long Beach State, Hawaii, and Cal Maritime rounded out the very competitive top five.
In the varsity 2 division, UCSB grabbed the win, followed by Stanford, Hawaii, Long Beach State, and the University of Washington Huskies. Finally, welcome to our Canadian friends from the University of Victoria.
The JV course was plagued with kelp to a much greater extent and racers spent much of the time dodging around patches that had caught on the windward or leeward mark despite the RC’s efforts of clearing the kelp off the course. There was tight racing in the top five with UCSB, Long Beach State, and UC-Berkeley duking it out. UCSB had a very strong regatta finishing 1st & 2nd followed by Long Beach State, UCSB, and Berkeley.
Once again, thank you to our volunteer Race Committee of Kathleen Baushke, and youth sailors; Carson Shevitz, Lucas Pierce, Evan Heffernan, and Matt Long. They were joined by Gaucho alumni, John Long (‘86) and past team coach, Jeff Grange (‘96) on mark set and course management.
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.
