Tricky conditions foil even the best in Newport

by Rich Roberts on 23 May 2005 It was a day to be lucky, or good at what you do, when fair winds deserted the inaugural First Team Real Estate Invitational Regatta on Day 2 of the big boat inshore race.

Roy Disney's Pyewacket continued its roll in the only race managed - and that was shortened from two laps to one, when starting winds of 6 knots faded to 3 knots, forcing the race committee to call it a day.

Hopes are for enough breeze Sunday (local time) to sail the last three of five scheduled races, but the unusual high-pressure system that has brought seaside temperatures into the 70s and 80s in Southern California, makes that problematical.

Not everyone was complaining. Ed McDowell, a veteran of the ULDB 70 sleds' glory days, sailed his 19-year-old Santa Cruz 70, Grand Illusion, into first place in Class B, with the fourth fastest elapsed time of the day.

Santa Cruz was only 8 minutes 10 seconds behind Randall Pittman's Class 1 Genuine Risk, a Dubois 90 on the cutting edge of 21st century technology and corrected out with a handicap time second only to Pyewacket by 14 seconds.

‘We were a little lucky,’ McDowell said.

Andy Rose, tactician for helmsman Craig Fletcher on Lewis Beery's 1D48, It's OK, did not exactly say that after trouncing the Class 3 fleet with an elapsed time of 1:36:18 for the six-mile race; faster than all but four of the nine larger boats in Class 2.

Rose, a Newport Beach sailing veteran, said the secret was to; ‘start at the committee boat [end of the line] and go west, young man,’ noting that the better breeze - what there was of it - was on that side of the course.

‘Newport Beach will never be known as the big wind capital of the world,’ said Rose. ‘It was pretty awful downwind, but you gotta keep the boat going. We just kept hitting Fletcher in the head, he added.’

Doug Baker's Magnitude 80 was another beneficiary of that line of thinking, also jibing to the west side to finish four minutes behind Pyewacket and five minutes in front of the faster-rated Genuine Risk, which had sailed into oblivion to the east.

‘We had a couple of local guys [Alan Andrews and Keith Kilpatrick] who beat up the tactician [Ernie Richau] to get us to that side,’ Baker side.

Then, when the wind shifted sharply from south-west to south, they jibed straight for the finish line - not with a spinnaker, but a Code Zero oversize headsail.

Earlier, that same sail, a furling one, got bowman Jimmy Slaughter into trouble at the windward mark, as it was being rolled up into its head foil. It caught Slaughter's sleeve, tore his shirt and fortunately freed him before he could be sucked into the wrap.

McDowell's boat has no such high-tech gear, but the tactics worked the same.

‘When the wind went south, it put us downwind right into the finish,’ McDowell said. ‘We'd like to say we predicted that shift!’

Tactician Patrick O'Brien said, well, it wasn't entirely luck, because ‘we had wanted to jibe, anyway.’

Meanwhile, Genuine Risk was struggling. After a poor start and leaving no choice but to follow Pyewacket to the west side, the afterguard - veteran Dave Ullman, who grew up in these waters, and Bill Hardesty, who led San Diego Yacht Club's Lipton Cup victory here last weekend, elected to go east for the downwind leg, rather than simply stay in their rival's wake.

‘We looked good for a while, but when the wind dropped, it put us in a hard place,’ Hardesty said. ‘It was just a very tricky day. We've got to put the pieces of our puzzle together.’

First Team Real Estate is the title sponsor, playing a key role in the event preparation and sponsorship support. Silver Sponsors include Bank of America, Daily Pilot, Hewitt, LNR Property Corporation, Mellon, Merrill Lynch, MKA Capital and PIMCO.

Additional sponsorship opportunities are available. Event proceeds will benefit Hoag Heart and Vascular Institute.

Standings (after 2 of 5 races; positions on corrected handicap time):

CLASS 1

1. Pyewacket (Reichel/Pugh maxZ86), Roy E. Disney, Los Angeles, 2 points; 2. tie between Genuine Risk (Dubois 90), Randall Pittman, San Diego, and Magnitude 80 (Andrews 80), Doug Baker, Long Beach, Calif., 5.

CLASS 2

1. Grand Illusion (Santa Cruz 70), Ed McDowell, Lahaina, H.I., 3;

2. Flash (Transpac 52), Mark Jones, San Francisco, 5;

3. Taxi Dancer (Reichel/Pugh 68), Paul Sharp, Newport Beach, 7;

4. tie between Skylark (Santa Cruz 70), Doug Ayres, Newport Beach, and Rosebud (Transpac 52), Roger Sturgeon, Santa Cruz, Calif., 9;

CLASS 3

1. Tie between Chayah (1D48), Oscar Krinsky, Long Beach, and It's OK (1D48), Lew Beery, Glendora, Calif., 4;

3, tie between Bolt (Nelson/Marek 55), Craig Reynolds, Newport Beach, and Stark Raving Mad (J/145), Jim Madden, Newport Beach, 6.

Complete results with elapsed and corrected times at: www.firstteamregatta.com