Carter Ford PCCSC Open Team Race Championship

What can we say except that Santa Barbara is a pretty amazing sailing venue. With a tall order of finishing a round of ten on Friday at minimum, teams arrived to an ocean of glass. They rigged the 18 FJ's and 6 z420's and prepped by throwing their gear on 'Layline' - the coach/rotational boat, while they waited for breeze. Forecasts called for a late build, but fortunately it was not too late as breeze arrived at about 11:00am from a very light southwesterly. Teams docked out at 11:15am and races began at 12:00pm. Initially from 210 degrees, the breeze built steadily and shifted to a prevailing 230 degrees ranging from 12-20 knots. Lots of interesting pressure continued to come from the left keeping the race course relatively open and allowing for awesome team racing and lots of races. One breakdown held up racing mid day for 20 minutes, but once it was taken care of, the racers were off an running again.

The round of ten (45 races) was completed at roughly 5pm (5 hours total) and the top four teams decided to push through to run a double-round of the final four teams and finish the regatta on Friday. Racing continued until 7:22pm and with a sunset of 7:25pm and dying breeze, the race committee called the day with only two races left to complete of the 57 scheduled. With 83% of the double-round robin of the final four completed, the results stood with Stanford winning the Carter Ford PCCSC Team Race Championship, UCSB finishing 2nd, Hawaii finishing 3rd, and an impressive performance by UCLA to round out the top 4.

The umpire team of Glenn Oliver (Chump), Bryan McDonald, Lucas Pierce, Sam Reynolds, Matt Long, and Claire Hunt were phenomenal throughout the day and cannot be thanked enough. Scott Deardorff, Leslie Deardorff, and Kent Pierce were instrumental in making this event to happen by donating their time and their beautiful boat as an on-the-water rotation station. Thank you also to UCSB students, Leela Ray Barlow, Emily Sullivan, and Harriet Jessup for volunteering for a marathon day on the water. Additionally, the regatta could not have happened without the incredible support of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club and the Santa Barbara Youth Sailing Foundation, both of which the PCCSC is forever grateful to.

Good luck to Stanford at the ICSA Team Race National Championship. The PCCSC will be rooting them on in their bid for the championship title!

-Submitted by Brad Schaupeter (PRO)