By Duncan Shea

Visitors to Santa Barbara's waterfront on the weekend of March 20-21 were treated to quite a show as nearly 60 High School sailing teams from all over California competed in the annual Gaucho Regatta, hosted by UCSB, SBYC, and the SBYSF. This event was the 5th high school sailing regatta of the season, which culminates in the Pacific Coast Championships hosted by St. Francis YC at the end of April.

28 teams competed in the Gold division at Gaucho, including three local teams representing Laguna Blanca, Dos Pueblos and Santa Barbara High Schools. After patiently waiting for the wind to fill on both mornings, the sailors were treated to ideal Santa Barbara conditions with the wind building to the low teens. The racecourse was set outside the harbor, directly off the breakwater, while boat rotations were completed off of West Beach. Four full sets were completed over the weekend for a total of 16 races.

Our local teams had some degree of 'home port advantage', but as always in High School Sailing, the starts of the races are more important than any other factor, and we had a little trouble getting off the line. A crowded line and some choppy waves bouncing off the breakwater made it difficult to get a clean front row start, and on more than a few occasions our local teams found themselves getting pushed to the wrong side of the course by other boats around them. The mantra for the weekend was "be aggressive, sail your own race", and after repeating that a few times on Sunday we started to see some better scores. Dos Pueblos ended up in 20th place, while SBHS finished 18th overall. Laguna Blanca had their best regatta of the year, placing 9th. All three of our teams finished the regular season in the top 20 and qualified for the Pacific Coast Championships.

Gold Results
Silver Results
Photos
Photos from Victor Maldanado