Fleet Captain’s Notes
June 25, 2007
Long Beach Race Week
Congratulations to Discovery owners
Brad Willingham and Hugh
Warnock and their loyal, talented crew for pulling off a well earned
win at
Long Beach Race Week. These guys have
been at it a long time and are definitely one of the top boats in the
fleet as
well as being some of the classiest, best sportsmen around. They
had boat speed all weekend in light to
moderate winds and ended completing a dominating performance by
registering
four bullets and a second place finish (One Time managed a hard fought
victory
in the final race). It wasn’t quite as easy as it
seemed because
on two of their wins they had to come from behind and on another they
barely
held off Quiet Woman at the finish. Still-
four bullets and a second will normally win you a regatta. It did
for them. It is with superb pleasure and pride that I
get to have their name engraved on the prestigious Carl Kendrich
trophy, an
honor long overdue.
Even though Discovery was dominant their dominance didn’t
come easy. Quiet Woman sailed their most
competitive regatta ever. They were in
virtually every race and managed two second place finishes. Manana-Iguana finally got out of the
doldrums and had a terrific final race pushing One Time around the entire
course. Tiburon sailed strongly all
weekend and was in every race until the end.
All in all everyone is rounding into top competitive form. It should be an interesting Regionals.
Certainly one of the highlights of the weekend had to have
occurred in Sunday’s first race. One
Time was in a strong second place position when at the second leeward rounding
misfortune struck. A shackle opened during
the douse causing the spinnaker to free fly twenty-five feet in the air. Several attempts to bring it down were
unsuccessful so Scott Melendres free-climbed to the top of the mast to retrieve
the halyard. This is the second time in
a major regatta that Scott has performed this hazardous, athletic
endeavor. The rest of the fleet as well
as the Race Committee watched in awe and admiration as it occurred. As for me I can do without the anxiety.
The Regatta itself was somewhat of an anomaly. As late as Wednesday night I still wasn’t sure
we were going to get a class start. Some
of the organizers were talking about a minimum of six boats needed to establish
a class. We only had five
committed. I had a conversation with
John Busch the LBYC Fleet Captain and asked him to argue our case in the event there
was some hesitancy. He promised he would
and I guess he was persuasive because a class start is what we got. You might consider thanking John next time
you see him.
I want to finish this message by expressing my personal
gratitude to those who attended this event.
I know it’s expensive (especially to those of us who didn’t enter on
time) but still it’s a great event and the after-sailing party and plentiful hors-deouvers
kind of take the sting out of the fee. I am hopeful that those of you that
didn’t compete this year will re-think your position for next year.
Finally, a special
thanks to new fleet member Charlie Legeman, who offered to pay for an entry, if
needed, to give us a start even though
he was previously committed to racing on another boat.
Enough for now. See
you Wednesday night.
To view the final results go to: http://www.lbrw.org/Results/USLBRW_Overall.html#Cal
and take a look at the pictures at: http://www.pictology.com/ecom/events/events.aspx?vendor-account=8889127313&event-code=USLBRW07&event-password=sailor
enter your email address to log in and go to page 11 for photos of the Cal 25 winners with the Bud Girls.
Click on photos below to enlarge
These and other LBRW Photos may be purchased from :
Photography by
David McBride
(562) 305-5120
david.mcbride@yahoo.com