Pacific Coast Championship

San Diego – Coronado, June 20-21, 2015. Regatta report by Seth Siegler

(Photo courtesy of SCIRA USA)

The Coronado Yacht Club played host to 2015 Snipe Pacific Coast Championship over Father’s Day weekend.

Fifteen teams and boats travelled from nearby yacht clubs to assemble upon what is widely regarded to be the best sailing location in San Diego.

In what was likely to be the final major San Diego regatta before Nationals, most teams strutted out their A-game sails, crews and tuning setups to see exactly where they stand among each other.

The sail out to the race course takes about 30 minutes from CYC but once there, most would agree that it was worth the trip. It’s a wide open part of the bay that’s protected from ocean swells and features a normal westerly breeze that often gets to 12 or so knots.

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Day one was classic Coronado. With about 10 knots of shifty breeze and long beats, there was lots of opportunity for big gains or big losses. Consistency was extremely hard to find for most teams but racing was tight – especially among the top 10 boats in every race.

With the ideal conditions the race committee was able to bang out four races with ease on a race course shared with a fleet of 10 finns.

By the end of day one, past Snipe National and North American champ (and Star World champ) George Szabo, making a comeback after many years away from the snipe, sat atop the standings with a 2-3-3-2 with crew Daisy Holthus. Hot on their heels was Doug Hart with crew Jon Rogers who ended their day strong with a total first-day-score of 6-7-1-1

As the fleet rigged up for day-two, which was also Father’s Day, the parking lot was abuzz with reminders to call your dad and discussions about what the conditions might bring. With the consensus that it would likely be similar to saturday, the fleet headed out and was mostly surprised to turn the corner and be faced with a bay full of whitecaps and 12-15 knots of breeze. As crews added turns to their shroud adjusters, most were excited to get into their hiking straps put the bow down into the windblown chop.

As racing got underway it was apparent that though it was windier, it was no less shifty with big gains and losses to be had on either side of the course. Again Szabo put himself into the right places at the right times and lead race-one from the first rounding to the finish over Hart and Rogers.

Between the finish of that first race and the start of the second one, the San Diego wind gods seemed to tire out and decided to go back to 10 kts-mode. Teams reversed their settings back to base and got ready to go for races two and three of the day. The defining factor in these two races would be “shear”. It was critical to be properly positioned in the breeze and not right next it, since a boat 20 feet away from you could easily be pointing 20 degrees differently. Szabo and Holthus weren’t phased and ended with a 1-2 in the final two races over Hart and Roger’s 5-3 to win the event by 11 points.

The top three was rounded out by Chuck Sinks who fell just five points behind Hart and Rogers.