The Official Version first:

Thanks to everyone for traveling and making the PCCs a great event. We had a total of 39 boats attending. Also, thanks to Sue Athman for the T-shirt designs, Dave Wahle our PRO, all the race committee volunteers, and West Marine for making the event possible.

Conditions were great, especially due to the fact that Santa Cruz had been fogged in for 10 days with light to no wind. It was looking bad on Saturday AM and then the fog parted and the wind filled in. Conditions on both days were for the most part in the 10 to 18 knot
range with some larger puffs and later in the day the standard light air at the  leeward marks.

A ton of new faces and old ones turned out with several brand new boats debuting at the regatta. Some really interesting new rigging ideas appeared on many boats not the least was some really nicely built fittings and new ideas on the Team Pegasus boats and on Trevor
Baylis's and Morgan Larsons new Waterat.

As always the racing was great and tight with many boats being very competitive as the fleet gears up for the NAs and Worlds, now less than 1 month away in August.

Race 1 was won by Mike Martin and Jeff Nelson by displaying great speed and excellent tactical sailing . They sailed very well and held off Danny/Andy and Mike/Carl for nice victory. Several boats capsized on the gybes mixing up the scores a bit. Good stuff.....

Race 2 was again a tight battle with Mike Holt and Carl Smit stretching out on the second weather leg and then nailing the gybe line on the last downwind leg and winning by the weekends biggest gap over the fleet.

Race 3 started in a patchy westerly with some big holes and shifts. Carl & Carol Buchan, Andy Beeckman/Ben Benjamin and Bruce Edwards/Dave Shelton worked up the middle right and stayed out in front the entire race. The wind went very light at the last leeward
mark and Bruce and Dave made it out to the breeze first and took the race.

Saturday night was BBQ night at the Santa Cruz YC, with most participants hanging out and talking tech.

Race 4 was a battle the whole race. ON the last downwind leg Morgan Larson and Trevor Baylis stayed outside a bit longer on the last leg, nailed a sweet angle to the finish line and went from 5th at the gybe to 1st at the finish, just beating out Danny/Andy and Howie/Pete.

Race 5 started to have some more of the "holey" spots with strong breeze on the left. It was a balance of playing the shifts and velocity. The Mike's had a good battle with Holt/Carl Smit taking the gun, later drop out, giving Martin/Nelson the victory.

The great news is that there are many boats with great speed and thewhole fleet has really escalated in ability.  Its looking good for a North American to win the worlds!!  Thanks again to all for attending, we are looking forward to seeing you at the worlds.

If you know some of the missing names, please send me an email so Ican get the SCYCs results updated.

Bruce Edwards

 

Now the Phlegmish version:

Fleet 3 was represented by two and a half teams in Santa Cruz for the Pacific Coast Championships last weekend. Team Weasel (Dan and Bill J), team Kitty (John and Bill M) and Harry Dunning, teaming up with Mark Christenson of the Pegasus goliath, all made the trek (Harry by airplane, tra-la tra-la).  Even though the wind was light throughout the previous week, for the regatta itself the conditions were the best we’ve seen so far this year. Wind mostly in the high teens/low 20’s had the boats ripping along upwind and downwind, but were never in the realm of insanity. This was also the biggest regatta to date, with forty boats including several from Canada and the East Coast. The Race Committee ran gate starts and they all came off flawlessly.

Race 1 really set the pattern for the Team Weasel weekend. The course was a WLWFin. We had a good start in clear air, and rounded the top mark in the middle of the pack. By sailing fast, and not capsizing during the gybes, we pulled ourselves into 11^th or 12^th for the final run to the finish. But then, as we were streaking in toward the finish line, a wave suddenly knocked us off balance. The boom dug in, the rudder stalled out, and over we went. We recovered quickly, but still only managed to finish in twentieth place.

Race 2 was a WLWRFin, so there would be the added challenge of sailing high with the spinnaker following the second windward mark rounding. After another good start on the left side of the line and sailing up the left side for several minutes, we decided that it was time to head right. We easily crossed in front of the first few boats that were still going left, but as we got into the middle of the pack we found ourselves ducking more and more frequently and finally had to tack back to stop the downward spiral. That put us back into the middle of the fleet again as we rounded the first mark, but definitely taught us a good lesson of what not to do. During the next lap we again pulled up into 10^th or so and set up for the reaching legs. We delayed the spinnaker set a few minutes get a little higher and give ourselves an easier angle to the reaching mark. As we flew into the mark, it wasn’t certain that we would make it. We thought about dousing, but decided to keep going for it. And we did make it, though rounding the mark just as another boat reached over us. With the sails blanketed, our boat rolled to weather and Dan was washed back to the stern. Of course, when the boat passed us the sails filled again, but with our weight totally out of position we went over faster than you could say “oh cr*p”. The recovery wasn’t nearly as neat that time and when we finally had the boat up again there were two new holes in the spinnaker. Two-sail reaching into the line, we were again 20^th.

Dan and I were both game to run the next race without the chute, but then realized that the wind was dropping. With little to gain by sailing around a slow race course, we headed in to get some work done on the boat, but not without getting to see a pretty weird sight first. In typical Santa Cruz fashion, the zone of convergence had moved out just east of the starting area and several boats were caught a mere hundred yards from the line. They had to sit there in a dead calm, watching the rest of the fleet sail away from them in 12 knots.

Back at the club, several other boats were already in with a variety of maladies from ripped spinnakers to broken rudders. Dan and I had Phlegm on its side with the spreaders torn apart by the time the bulk of the fleet got in. With some help from Mike and Howie, we installed the new adjusters and got them set according to the latest theories of mast shaping.

Later that evening, the YC provided a cook-your-own bbq with massive amounts of food followed by an enormous chocolate brownie. By that point I was ravenous, and would have eaten just about anything, but the food was really good, besides being free. The traditional BS session broke out on the deck as everyone ate. The top three positions for the day were filled by two local teams and Team Tuesday stalwarts Benny and Andy. Some of the usual contenders were noticeably missing – Howie and Peter had suffered some verticality issues, and Mike and Jeff were victims of a hardware failure. Actually, Mike and Jeff ended the day a full point behind Team Weasel. While quite a way from the top of the score sheet, they didn’t seem too worried about the Weasel threat. Dan led the charge on the YC bar and single-handedly upheld the honor of the San Diego drinking squad. I retired early, forced by sinking eyelids and a full stomach to finally recover from the sleep deprivation of the drive up the previous night.

The RC got off two races on Sunday, again with wind in the very high teens, if a bit puffier than the day before. Dan and I (sporting the “B” spinnaker) had a good start and a crummy start, capsized once in each race again, and probably finished in about the same positions as the day before. The final race was the most exciting. The course was WLWRLFin. After tanking the start and capsizing at the first weather mark (don’t remember how) Dan and I were solidly in last place. But on the first run we were able to stay in a wind line when the boats ahead of us went to sit-down mode, and we planed over several of them. We kept our speed up in the second beat, made it around the reaching mark, gybed, and rounded the leeward mark passing boats on each leg. The final beat was a drag race up the left side with Rob Waterman/Steve Flam and one of the Pegasus boats (either Shark, or Crusty and Harry). We were going really well and pulling ahead of them. But in another bizarre twist, we hit a big fish about half a mile from the finish that knocked our centerboard up an inch. It didn’t seem significant at the time since we already had it up 3 inches and were still a little overpowered, so we didn’t put it back down. In retrospect I think that the extra inch put the board in non-gybing mode and affected our ability to point well. In any case, at about that time we started dropping down on Rob and Steve, were forced to tack away, and lost both them and the Pegasus boat. Kind of disappointing, but overall it was an exhilarating comeback in some great sailing conditions.

All in all, this was one of the best regattas I can remember. The wind was ideal, the races were expertly run, the meal Saturday evening was delicious, Dan and I had Phlegm moving well, carried the spinnaker in all the races, and gybed without capsizing. For the Worlds we plan to avoid capsizing altogether! Many thanks go out to Aaron Ross who, besides dealing with all the headaches of running the American Section of the 505 class and holding some official position in the local fleet, also let us stay at his house for each SC regatta this year.

Bill Jenkins

USA8411 (Phlegm)

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Results:

http://www.scyc.org/Racing/2004/11-505PCC/results/2004-505-pccsos.html

1. Bruce Edwards / Dave Shelton 5,2,1,4,4,   11
2. Dan Thompson / Andy Zinn   2,4,7,2,5,   13
3. Mike Holt/Carl Smit   3,1,5,6,40,   15
4. Andy Beeckman/Benny Benjamin   6,3,2,40,6   17
5. Howard Hamlin/Peter Alarie 4,12,9,3,3,   19
6. Jeff Miller/ John Bell   8,5,6,14,2   21
7. Doug Hagan/Stuart Park   9,6,18,9,12   36
8. Adam Lowry/David Byron   19,8,19 11,8   46
9. Ryan Cox/Jeff Grange   11,11,10, 19,14   46
10. Mike Martin/Jeff Nelson   1, 40,40, 5, 1   47
11. Fritz Lanzinger/Jay Renehan   12,7,8,22,26   49
12. Robin Brown/John Fry   18,17,12,12,9   50
13. Nigel Oswald/Rob McMillon   10,10,17,15,16   51
14. Carol Buchan/Carl Buchan   16,40,3,8,27   54
15. Macy Nelson/Erik Booth    21,19,11,13,11   54
16. Dave Chatham/Matt McQueen   14, 9,40,10,24   57
17. Steve Flam/Rob Waterman   22,13,14,20,17  64
18. Phillipe Kahn/ ? 15,16,23,21,22   74
19. Ali Meller/Jesse Falsone   7,24,4,40,40    75
20. Pierre Jean Girard/Paul Von Grey   40,23,13,28,13   77
21. Shark Kahn/ Paul Allen   23,40,21,18,18   80
22. Lin Robson/?   17,25,15,25,40   82
23. Thad Lieb/Mike Smith   13,40,40,16,15   84
24. Dan Merino/Bill Jenkins   20,20,40,27,19   86
25. Steve Anderes/?   24,18,22,29,23   87
26. Morgan Larson/Trevor Baylis    40,40,40,1,7   88
27. Aaron Ross/?   26,15,40,26,25   92
28. Crusty Christiansen/?   30,40,25,17,20   92
29. Nick Adamson/Alan Norman   40,40,40,7,10   97
30. Jeff Sloan/?   40,14,20,24,40   98
31. Brad Wheeler/Bill Mais   40,40,16,33,21   110
32. John Billings/?   29,22,40,32,29   112
33. Jennifer Lawson/Soren Storm 40,26,24,34,30   114
34. Garth Reynolds/?   25,21,40,30,40   116
35. Brian Trainor/?   40,27,40,31,28   126
36. Carisa Harris/Ralph Silverman   27,40,40,23,40   130
37. Dan Strellis/?   28,40,40,35,40   143
38. Adrian Finglas/?   40,40,40,40,40   160
39. Ryan Nelson/?    40,40,40,40,40   160