(Long Beach, CA)- Sailing in the Los Angeles basin offers the locals a
wide variety of sailing conditions. The topographical features of the
region are dominated by the mountain ranges and valleys that traverse
the area from the northwest to the southeast, often providing enough
heating to generate reliable sea-breeze conditions along the coast.
While downtown L.A. and Palm Springs may be boiling in 90 to 115 F
degrees, the sea coast is basking in sunshine and cool breezes blowing
onshore in the 210 to 240 degree range. As one of the classic California summer regattas, this year's Long Beach Race Week delivered on that promise with WSW breezes, some fog and cool conditions. Friday's sailing saw lots of fog the morning burn off and produce gorgeous sailing in the afternoon with 8-14 kts breezes from WSW. Saturday's sailing saw the wind in a more southerly quadrant and with three races scheduled, the PRO's were busy changing marks to the west all day as the wind clocked from 190 to 235 degrees. Sunday dawned sunny onshore but by midday the tail feathers of a front passing by the south produced the most southerly breezes of the weekend, ranging from 160 to 210 degrees with some grey overcast skies for some fleets.
The host clubs, Long Beach YC and Alamitos Bay YC, provided excellent race management across three circles (North- J/24s; West- J/120s, PHRF 1; South- J/70, J/80, J/105, J/109, PHRF) for the 18 classes. Six one-design J fleets participated, including J/24s, J/70s, J/80s, J/105s, J/109s and J/120s. In addition, the two PHRF divisions had several offshore J teams sailing.
The eight teams sailing the J/70 class saw San Diego YC member Bennet Greenwald continuing his winning streak in J/70s sailing PERSEVERANCE to take top honors with five 1sts in their score card of seven races. Behind them it was quite a tussle for the top five. In the end, Craig Tallman from Kings Harbor YC took second sailing JAYA with mostly 2nd and 3rds for a total of 20 pts. Third was the team of Tom Jenkins and Eric Kownacki on DFZ just three points back. Fourth was Karl Pomeroy in ZERO TO 60 and fifth was Dan Gribble and Joe Wiese in GO-RILLA. For more Long Beach Race Week sailing information
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