Day 2 Acura presents Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week

by Rich Roberts on 28 Jun 2009
The nice thing about racing when Acura presents Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week is that there's always next year.

David Voss has been racing his Farr 40, Piranha---the one with the distinctively mean fish face on the spinnaker---in the event for many years but never broke through to first place until last year.

'Until then we had been second at Long Beach more times than I know,' he said. 'There's been some heartbreaking years.'

But after recovering from a protest setback Friday, he scored a steady string of 4-2-2 finishes Saturday to move back into first place by one point over a familiar rival, Ray Godwin's Temptress, as Day 1 leader Jeff Janov's Dark Star
essentially slipped out of contention in the eight-boat fleet.

With two of the seven races remaining Sunday for the 135 boats in 18 classes, Voss said, 'Now we'll just be trying to sail conservatively.'

Another marquee battle finds David Bassett-Parkins' 1D48, Emirage II, with a two-point lead in PHRF-1 over Chris Hemans' IMS 40, Entropy, the Ullman Sails Inshore Championship leader in the Fast 40 group, and Mark Surber's J/125, Derivative, another point back.

Whoever wins, the organizing Alamitos Bay and Long Beach Yacht Clubs are giddy about the conditions that two days in row have delivered the celebrated Long Beach sea breeze to test the competitors with winds ranging from 8 knots at the outset to the high-teens---17 knots Saturday---by late afternoon.

Bassett-Parkins said, 'It's gone from 8 to 11 and 17 and we've adjusted. All the guys have been with me a long time. We've practiced, and the boat is set up just right.'

Emirage II has finished first in all five races but scored 2-4-3-1-2 because it's giving handicap time to every other boat.

'We can't cover everybody,' Bassett-Parkins said, 'so all we can do is to keep pushing hard no matter how far ahead we are.'

One problem is that Emirage II also has to deal with the Farr 40s who are starting five minutes earlier.

'We sail right into their fleet,' Bassett-Parkins said.

Voss is concerned about handicaps in the Farr 40 one-design fleet, but he and Eric Shampain, his veteran tactician, will have their hands full holding off Temptress and Zoltan Katinszky's Radical Departure, only three points back. But Voss has special motivation.

'We're trying to start a new tradition,' he said, smiling.

Another familiar name in first place is Bruce Golison, whose family ran the forerunner of the event for 20 years. He leads the PHRF-2 class sailing something of a misfit in the eight-boat fleet: an Etchells, usually a one-design class of its own. It's getting time from most of the other boats, although it did finish first in one of Saturday's three races.

'I was bored, nothing to do,' said Golison, who is driving Cahoots, an ABYC boat owned by Chris Wells, who is crewing with Mandi Dufort and Robin Durnin. Otherwise, Golison has been racing an Etchells in the East Coast Jaguar series for Etchells the last two years, facing as many as 60 or 70 boats on the line. He finished third this year.

Sailing in the regatta is more fun than running it.

'It's nice that we get to race on the same course where the big boats are,' Golison said. 'But Long Beach has changed from the days when you'd start and go hard right. Now you can go anywhere on the course and still come out all right.'

The regatta is the climactic event of the Ullman Sails Inshore Championship Series, following Ahmanson Cup at Newport Beach, Yachting Cup at San Diego and Cal Race Week at Marina del Rey.

Class leaders (after 5 or 7 races)

Alpha course
PHRF-1 (10 boats)---Emirage II (1D48), David Bassett-Parkins, Alamitos Bay YC, 2-4-3-1-2, 12 points.

PHRF-2 (9)---Comanche (Catalina 30), Tim Kernan, Alamitos Bay YC, 1-4-1-2-4, 12.

J/120 (10)---Tie between Caper, John Laun, San Diego YC, DNC-DNC-4-2-2, and CC Rider, Chuck Nichols, SDYC, DNC-DNC-2-3-3, 30.

FARR 30 (6)---Frequent Flyer, Garrett Woodworth, New York YC, 1-3-1-2-1, 8.

FARR 40 (8)---Piranha, David Voss, California YC, 1-5-4-2-2, 14.

FLYING TIGER 10 (5)---Mile High Klub, Payson & Philip Infelise, Newport Harbor YC, 1-1-1-2-1, 6.

Bravo course
PHRF-3 (8)---Cahoots (Etchells), Bruce Golison, Alamitos Bay YC, 1-1-2-3-2, 8.

J/105 (13)---Current Obsession, Gary Mozer, Long Beach YC, 4-1-2-1-1, 9.

J/109 (5)---Electra, Thomas Brott, Seal Beach YC, 1-1-1-1-2, 6.

J/29 (5)---Sedona, Bruce Lotz, Dana Point YC, 1-1-1-1-2., 6.

J/180 (8)---Fired Up, Gary Kamins, Cal YC, 4-1-6-1-2, 14.

SCHOCK 35 (7)---Code Blue, Bob Marcus/Bruce Bennett, Alamitos Bay and Seal Beach & YCs, 2-1, 3.

Charlie course
J/24 (7)---Take Five, Susan Taylor, Cal YC, 1-1-2-4-6, 14.

CAL 25 (4)---Jane's Addiction, Steve & Jane Horst, Bahia Corinthian YC, 2-1-1-1-1, 6.

CATALINA 37 (3)---Team ABYC, Chuck Clay, Alamitos Bay YC, 1-2-1-1-2, 7.

OPEN 5.7 (11)---Il havic, Rich Festa, Cal YC, 2-1-2-1-1, 7.

VIPER 640 (6)---Boom Slang, Drew Harper, South Beach YC, 3-3-2-1-1, 10.

RANDOM LEG (10)---It's OK, Andrews 40, 2-2, 4.

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