California Dreamin’ Series - Shane Young wins second stop and leads

by Rick Roberts on 3 Mar 2017 Shane Young and his Long Beach Yacht Club team won the second round of the three-venue World Sailing Grade 3 California Dreamin’ Series match racing series on Sunday, Feb. 26, held at Long Beach Yacht Club and raced on the Long Beach Sailing Foundation’s fleet of Catalina 37s. Young was nearly unbeatable for the weekend, losing only one race to fellow LBYC member and Junior Staff Commodore, Dave Hood, who finished fourth in regatta.

Having finished in second place at the first stop of the series at San Diego Yacht Club, Jan. 7-8, Young now sits in first place in the series standings, just a few points ahead of St. Francis Yacht Club’s Nicole Breault, who finished in first at SDYC and third at LBYC. Breault is currently second in the series standings. The next, and final, stop on the series is at St. Francis Yacht Club, March 11-12.

Third place to-date in the series standings is St.FYC’s Russ Silvestri, who was close to Young throughout the weekend, taking second place in the regatta after having placed third at SDYC.

But, in a little more than a weeks’ time, Silvestri and Breault will be racing on their home waters on the club’s J/22s in the sometimes challenging weather conditions of San Francisco Bay. Young has quite a bit of experience in these boats in the Bay and will need to finish near, or at, the top to win the series.

This past weekend’s weather seemed to have its own agenda, which didn’t seem to match with the weather forecaster’s versions. The LBYC race committee team worked through very changeable light to heavy wind starting out at less than three knots on Saturday and then gusting to as much at 17 knots on Sunday, for a brief period of time just prior to dropping to less than five at the end of the regatta.

With all of the delays for lack of wind at the start of Saturday’s matches, and course relocation mid-day both days for 180 degree wind shifts, the race committee was able to complete 52 of the 56 scheduled matches of the double-round robin format.

Final Results with partial second round robin scoring

1. Shane Young, Long Beach YC, 6.5 points, .5 loss
2. Russ Silvestri, St. Francis YC, 5.5, 1.5
3. Nicole Breault, St.FYC, 4.0, 3.0 (on tiebreaker)
4. Dave Hood, LBYC, 4.0, 3.0
5. Bill Durant, LBYC, 3.0, 4.0
6. Sydney Gathrid, Del Rey YC, 2.0, 5.0
7. Andrew Meade, Kaneohe YC, 1.5, 5.5
8. Summer Greene, San Diego YC, 0.5, 6.5

Current 2017 California Dreamin’ Series Standings

1. Shane Young, LBYC
2. Nicole Breault, St.FYC
3. Russ Silvestri, St.FYC
4. Dave Hood, LBYC
5. Andrew Meade, KYC
6. Sydney Gathrid, DRYC
7. Justin Law, NHYC
8. Bill Durant, LBYC
9. Chris Snow, SDYC
10. Summer Greene, SDYC

For more information visit website.