Etchells One Design Weekend – February 6-7, 2010

An ultra-competitive fleet of nearly forty Etchells from all over the US have amassed in San Diego and begun their preparations for the 2010 North American Championships at SDYC in June. The February 6-7 One Design Weekend is the first of three weekend regattas forming the new SLAM Winter Series, which culminates with the Midwinters West regatta April 9-11.

As the fleet was leaving the dock Saturday morning, yet another frontal boundary bore down on San Diego bringing heavy rain, Southerly wind gusts to 30 knots and a bumpy thrash out the channel. As the visibility rapidly deteriorated, PRO Bruce Greene elected to recall the fleet and cancel racing for the day. Some teams later elected to practice in the Bay when conditions moderated a bit in the afternoon, while others spent the day making repairs and structural improvements to their boats.

By Super Bowl Sunday morning clear skies were replacing the storm clouds and the eager fleet sailed out to the Coronado Roads race area in brisk NW winds gusting over 20 knots. The churned-up seas were running up to 10 feet high, providing some fast surfing downwind and condo-jumping action upwind.  Tight rigs and active pumping of the sails and bilge pumps was the fashion of the day.

Race one featured a close battle to the first mark between Will Stout’s 904 and Bruce Nelson’s 986, with Chris Busch’s 969 close astern and jumping into the lead early on the subsequent run. Busch held the lead around the second lap to win the race from Stout with Nelson close behind, followed by Dave Ullman steering John Fuller’s 935 and Bruce Golison (Long Beach) with Jud Smith and Bill Lynn (from Marblehead) on 1285.

Race two started off with a tight horse race to the left between Busch, Nelson and Vince Brun’s 1227, while Golison and Ullman led the pack from the right and rounded the top mark one – two. Golison maintained his lead to win the race, while Nelson managed to catch a fast wave and surf past Ullman on the final gybe to the finish for second. Tom Hughes’ 1306 (from Seattle) moved up into fourth after Busch and Brun sailed into lighter wind on the right side of the second beat and slipped into fifth and sixth.

With just two points separating the top four boats (Nelson, Busch, Golison, and Ullman), and a good seat for viewing the Super Bowl on the line, there was all to play for heading into the race three finale. Poor starts by Nelson and Busch forced them to take sterns off to the right while the leaders headed left towards stronger pressure. 2009 North American Champion Marvin Beckmann from Houston, with Curt Oetking and Jeff Madrigali onboard, steered 1232 to an early lead for a wire-to-wire win. Ullman’s team continued their consistent sailing to finish second and win the series by two points over Golison, both using Jud Smith’s Doyle Sails. Busch recovered well enough to finish ninth and salvage third place for the series, while Stout’s team rebounded from a jib halyard problem in race two to finish fourth in the race and the series. And SDYC Staff Commodore Jim Moxham secured the top Corinthian award with another respectable eighth place finish.

See the SDYC website (www.sdyc.org) for complete results and schedules for the remainder of the season.

Submitted by Bruce Nelson