By Duncan Shea
The SBYSF’s high school sailors traveled to San Francisco
on the weekend of February 27-28 to compete in the fourth
High School Sailing regatta of the year. Hosted by Stanford
University, the Cardinal Regatta was run at Stanford’s
boathouse in Redwood City, at the south end of the San Francisco
Bay. More than 50 teams from all over California participated
in the regatta, with our local sailors representing Dos
Pueblos, Santa Barbara and Laguna Blanca high schools.
Conditions on both days were some of the best we’ve
seen at a high school regatta all year. A storm front was
moving through the area all weekend, resulting in steady
breeze for the most part. The course was set in an enclosed
bay directly adjacent to the Stanford boathouse, providing
flat water and great views for spectators and coaches. The
race committee completed three full rotations on Saturday
for a total of 12 races, with our local teams around mid-fleet
most of the time but showing flashes of brilliance here
and there. As always, the starts are the most important
part of high school sailing, and each team had at least
one great start leading to a good finish.
The wind took a little longer to pick up on Sunday morning,
finally filling in around noon. The race committee left
the dock to set up the course, and the whole fleet followed
them out to warm up. After waiting around for half an hour
for the course to get set up and the wind to really fill
in, all 50 boats suddenly turned around and headed back
to the dock for no apparent reason. It turned out that a
large cargo ship (which had been docked along the race course)
was leaving its berth, so everyone needed to get out of
the way. The process of moving the ship involved two tugboats
and delayed racing for about 45 minutes, but everything
finally settled down and two more rotations were completed
that afternoon (even with the distraction of the USA/ Canada
hockey game, which seemed to occupy the attention of sailors
and spectators more than the racing did!).
Out of 27 boats in Gold fleet, Santa Barbara HS placed
11th, our top local team. Dos Pueblos ended up 19th and
Laguna Blanca 22nd. We’re already busy practicing for
the next regatta, which is only two weeks away and is hosted
here in Santa Barbara by UCSB.
Results
