A 'Magic Carpet' for ABYC's Memorial Day
LONG BEACH, Calif.---The price of fuel was no worry to 206 of the better small boat sailors from Southern California and beyond. A brisk Long Beach sea breeze was all the fuel they needed in Alamitos Bay Yacht Club's Memorial Day Regatta.
They sailed 140 boats in 18 classes, reveling in winds up to 15 knots with gusts past 20 on Saturday and slightly lighter wind Sunday.
"I love sailing in Long Beach," said Katie Maxim of San Francisco, who won the Laser Radial class on a tiebreaker with Ryan Hoeven from the SouthBay area of Los Angeles. She was the only female in the seven-boat class.
She didn't love it any more than ABYC's own Dan DeLave, who said he and longtime crew Eileen Haubl "were on our magic carpet this weekend." They won the highly competitive Formula 18 catamaran class by a impressively wide six-point margin with five first places and a second in seven races.
Other standout winners were Newport Harbor YC Finn sailor Peter Macdonald with six successive firsts after a discard fourth in the first race and Adam Borcherding and crew Julieanne Jones of South Coast YC counting five firsts and a second in the Hobie 16s.
Other ABYC sailors held off visitors handily with wins by Bob Falk in Lasers, Kevin Taugher and crew Bill Mais in 5-0-5 skiffs, and world champion Pete Melvin in A-Catamarans.
Inside on AlamitosBay, veteran Stu Robertson and daughter Erin Frederick blitzed a small Lido A fleet, while Nevin Snow from San Diego YC and Freddie Stevens of ABYC were Sabot A and Senior Sabot winners.
Maxim, originally from nearby Tustin, Calif., is on a comeback of sorts. She was a top collegiate sailor at St. Mary's College in Maryland until she graduated in 2000. Since then, she said, "We’ve been married and had two kids."
"We" includes her husband Rob, who finished third in Lasers. Now, at 29, Maxim is testing her potential for sailing a Radial---the new Olympic women's class---in China in 2008.
"We'll see how I do," she said. "I've only been back in the boat a few months, and I'm still making a lot of rusty mistakes."
Meantime, she hopes to qualify for the Radial Worlds at Marina del Rey in late July.
DeLave, 50, also has new hopes based on the weekend's success.
"[This was a] huge surpriseto win against some of these guys," he said. "Any one of them could have won this regatta. But these were our conditions. We sail out of here every weekend, whether we're racing or not. The boat was set up right and we got off the line right."
He and Haubl already planned to compete in the Formula 18 Worlds in France in July and the Hobie Tiger Worlds two weeks later in Spain.
"She's one of the top crews out there," DeLave said. "She keeps me going. There was no time out there that we weren't talking about what we should be doing."
Class winners
LASER (10 boats)---Bob Falk, Alamitos Bay YC, 1-(7)-3-5-1-1-1, 12 points.
LASER RADIAL (Katie Maxam, St. Mary's, 2-1-2-1-2-(3)-1, 9.
A-CATAMARAN (12)---Pete Melvin, ABYC, 1-1-1-(2)-1-1-2, 7.
FORMULA 18 (11)---Dan DeLave/Eileen Haubl, ABYC, 1-1-1-2-(6)-1-1, 7.
HOBIE 16 (8)---Adam Borcherding/Julieanne Jones, South Coast YC, (3)-1-2-1-1-1-1-1, 7.
PORTSMOUTH (6)---Barrett Sprout/Randy Sprout (C/15), California YC, 1-1-1-1-1-(4)-1, 6.
SNIPE (4)---Jim Grubbs/Mark Ryan, ABYC, 2-1-(4)-1-2-2-3, 11.
5-0-5 (7)---Kevin Taugher/Bill Mais, ABYC, 1-1-(2)-1-2-2-1, 8.
THISTLE (5)---Skip Kempff/Jason Raiha/Mac Kempff, Anacapa YC, 1-2-1-2-2-(3), 8.
FINN (7)---Peter Macdonald, NewportHarbor YC, (4)-1-1-1-1-1-1, 6.
ETCHELLS (5)---Gordon Dudley/Travis Hansen/Andrew Whitmore, ABYC, (3)-2-2-1-1-1, 7.
LIDO A (4)---Stu Robertson/Erin Frederick, Mission
Bay YC, 1-1-(2)-1-1-1, 5.
LIDO B (6)---Steve Mueller/George Schulter, Balboa YC, (4)-1-1-1-1-4, 8.
SENIOR SABOT (12)---Freddie Stevens, ABYC, 2-1-2-3-1-(5), 9.
SABOT A (13)---Nevin Snow, San Diego YC, 1-1-2-1-(7)-3, 8.
SABOT B (9)---Emily Bohl, SDYC, 1-1-1-1-(8)-5, 9.
SABOT C (5)---Ginger Luckey, ABYC, 1-1-1-1-1-(4), 5.
SABOT C-2 (8)---Palmer Luckey, ABYC, 2-1-4-4, 11.
Complete results:
MORE INFORMATION:
MEDIA CONTACT
Rich Roberts
(310 835-2526
cell (310) 7660-6547