The good times and smart boats roll at L.B.

by Rich Roberts on 24 Jun 2007 Puffing a cigar, sucking on a bottle of beer and talking on a cell phone, life was good for Bennett Greenwald after sailing Perseverance into first place among the J/105s Saturday in Acura's presentation of Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week, co-hosted by the Long Beach and Alamitos Bay Yacht Clubs.

Fortunately, the San Diego sailor does not multitask to that extreme at the helm or he wouldn't have three wins in five races, including a 5-1-1 roll Saturday and a one-point lead with two races remaining Sunday. But to hear him tell it, he could get away with it.

'See this crew?' he said. 'Travis Wilson, Peter van Waay, Chris Nesbitt and everybody . . . I'm just hanging on by my fingernails with these guys telling me where to go. That really is the secret: to have a crew like this.'

It probably is true that most of the 126 skippers in 16 classes needed all the help they could find as light and shifty conditions continued.

The wind was 7 to 9 knots---up a bit from Friday---but under a gray and hazy sky continued to wallow east of south in a 'Catalina eddy' state---meaning, the competitors again had to deal with the shifty zephyrs wafting past the east end of Santa Catalina Island 22 miles offshore instead of the customary southwest sea breeze funneling past the west end and down the San Pedro Channel.

Dave Ullman, the new world Melges 22 champion and class leader here, had warned about the eddy in a pre-regatta presentation, but few expected it to transpire two days in a row on the first weekend of summer.

The forecast for the final day Sunday? You don't want to know.

Greenwald said, 'Coming off the starting line we were going the right way---left---but sometimes if you hit the left corner it died.'

'And,' van Waay said, 'the left never paid on the second windward leg.'

'Then,' Greenwald said, 'it's like Dave Ullman said: play the shifts.'

Oh, if only sailing were so easy. A few are making it seem that way in challenging conditions. Geoff Longenecker and the Howard Lewis/Bruce Cooper teams continued to swap firsts and seconds with their Melges 30 and Melges 32 in the Sportboat class, remaining only a point apart, while John Pacquin's Elusive is all but running the table with a 1-1-1-1-2 string in the new Flying Tiger 10 class.

In the Fast 40s, Dr. Laura Schlessinger of Santa Barbara has four firsts and a second on her new J/145, The Doc, and is having at least as good a time as Greenwald.

'We've got our act together, and I'm driving the boat,' the petite blonde radio hostess declared, giving credit to her longtime sailing sidekick, Ken Keading. 'We are a team that's hard to beat, and we have a heck of a lot of fun. There's more laughing on our boat than any other boat here.'

But perhaps the most impressive performance was the speed show put on by Rosebud, Roger Sturgeon's new STP65 that has been tuning up for next month's Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii. Rosebud missed Friday while completing some repairs but came out flying Saturday in the Fast 50 class for the biggest boats.

Although owing the next fastest boat, Mike Campbell and Dale Williams' Kernan 70 Peligroso, 27 seconds a mile, and others as much as 105 seconds, Rosebud swept the day with three wins on overall handicap time, let alone finishing a mile or so in front of almost everybody, boat for boat.

In Melges 24s, Alan Field of Marina del Rey broke Ullman's unbeaten streak after four second places, and Gary Mozer's Current Obsession grabbed a share of the J/109 lead with Tony Wetherbee's Commotion after discovering a clump of speed-killing kelp on its sail-drive that cost it a fourth place Friday.

Dave Adamson's Farr 50 Woolly Bully from Marina del Rey started the day one point behind Dirk Freeland's first place Skian Dhu, Santa Barbara, but found double trouble from the start.

'Before the first race we broke our main halyard,' Adamson said. 'Because it’s a fractional rig we couldn’t get all the way up the mast to reach it. So one of our crew, Scott Dickson, called over and arranged for Magnitude 80 to help out. We parked next to her, canted her keel and we were able to reach over and fix it. We made it out for the second race but the halyard broke again. But our spirits are up and tomorrow’s another day.'

Racing concludes Sunday starting at noon, conditions permitting.

Class leaders (After 5 of 7 races)

FAST 50 (9)---Tie between Peligroso (Kernan 70), Mike Campbell/Dale Williams, Long Beach, 1-2-4-2-3, and Staghound (Reichel/Pugh 50), 3-1-2-4-2, 12 points.

FAST 40 (8)---The Doc (Dr. Laura Schlessinger), Santa Barbara, 1-1-2-1-1, 6.

SPORTBOAT (7)---Nemesis (Melges 30), Geoff Longenecker, San Diego, 2-1-1-1-2, 7.

PHRF 4 (10)—Rival (J/35), Dick Velthoen/Paul Defrietas, Ventura, 1-1-1-5-1, 9.

PHRF 5 (9)---Hitchhiker (Laser 28), Doug Johnstone, Marina del Rey, 1-1-3-2-1, 8.

FARR 40 (7)---Skian Dhu, Dirk Freeland, Santa Barbara, 1-3-1-1-2, 8.

J/105 (15 boats)---Perseverance, Bennett Greenwald, San Diego, 1-6-5-1-1, 14.

BENETEAU 36.7 (5)---Bella Vita, Martin Burke, King Harbor, 1-1-3-1-3, 9.

SCHOCK 35 (8)---Power Play, Steve Arkle/Tom McQuade, Marina del Rey, 1-3-2-1-1, 8.

J/109 (5)---Tie between Commotion, Tony Wetherbee, Balboa, 1-3-3-2-2, and Current Obsession, Gary Mozer, Long Beach, 4-1-1-1-4, 11.

MELGES 24 (10)---Pegasus 505, Dave Ullman, Balboa, 1-1-1-1-2, 6.

FLYING TIGER 10 (8)---Elusive, John Pacquin, San Diego, 1-1-1-1-2, 6.

CATALINA 37 (5)---Team Legeman, Charlie Legeman, Long Beach, 1-1-1-1-1, 5.

J/80 (7)---Blue Moon 2, Roland Fournier, Long Beach, 1-1-1-2-4, 9.

J/29 (6)---Coyote, David Randle, Santa Barbara, 1-2-1-3-2, 11.

RANDOM LEG (7)---Tie between Fortaleza (Santa Cruz 50), Jim Morgan, Marina del Rey, 5-1, and Corsair (Peterson 43), Craig Brown, Long Beach, 2-4, 6.