Dave’s Dust Up Grade 5 Match Race

by Rick Roberts on 31 Oct 2013 On Saturday, Nov. 23, Long Beach Yacht Club will present Dave’s Dust Up, an ISAF Grade 5 match race. The racing action will begin around 11:30 a.m. (weather conditions permitting) and will be able to be seen from Long Beach’s Veterans Memorial Pier.

Eight of the Long Beach Sailing Foundation’s Catalina 37s will be available for the regatta. Local area skippers are encouraged to enter for a day of sharpening their match racing skills and potentially earning ISAF match race points.

Skippers interested in entering Dave’s Dust Up should contact LBYC Waterfront Director Rick Roberts at raceoffice@lbyc.org or (562) 493-5173.

Local sailor and LBYC Fleet Captain Dave Hood---namesake for this regatta--- has successfully skippered these same One-Design boats in both fleet and match racing. His desire is to build match racing on the west coast with LBYC as the hub.

'We want to promote match racing in the US,' said Hood. 'To do that we need to have a development program for both junior and adult sailors.'

This year, Long Beach Yacht Club introduced the inaugural Long Beach Junior Match Race Invitational, an ISAF Grade five one-day regatta. Inspired by LBYC’s Junior Commodore Jack Berg, eight teams of junior sailors ranging in age from 10 to 18 years old sailed CFJs in east Long Beach’s Alamitos Bay turning basin.

The enthusiasm of the junior sailors and the overwhelming success has caused the regatta to be expanded to two days in 2014 (June seventh-eight) with a match racing rules and tactics seminar early on the first day including instruction from America’s Cup umpires and US Sailing judges.

Building on that success, LBYC wants to have similar match race regattas where adults can also get both on and off the water instruction and coaching. That is the reason for Dave’s Dust Up and the two-day ISAF Grade five Match Racing Tune Up in March of next year (specific dates to be announced).