Royal Vancouver YC Fall Match Race Regatta
For the Commodore's Cup
October 4-6, 2013
Team SDYC took a trip up North of the Border to the Royal Vancouver YC (RVYC) in Canada in early October. The team watched the weather forecasts closely leading up the event, bracing for potential Northwest cold and wet conditions. To our surprise we were greeted with dry and moderate conditions to the chagrin of our Canadian competitors. RVYC and SDYC have enjoyed a friendly competitive relationship over the years, sending teams back and forth. This year was no different with our team heading up for a Match Race Regatta and their team heading down for a regatta and some Hot Rum racing. Our team consisted of Eric Cibit on the jib, Alex Jacobs on the main/spin, Nick Kaschak running the bow, and me driving the boat.
Thursday afternoon we arrived at the charter boat company to help deliver one of the boats up to the Yacht Club and take a few minutes to try and figure out the boat. Friday the racing started and after waiting for the wind to fill in we went undefeated on the day. Saturday the wind struggled to fill in again, but we had just enough to finish the round robin. Our only loss of the round robin was at the hands of the eventual regatta winner Chris Carroll of Australia. In a routine dial up we were dealt a penalty and after leading our opponent around the track we saw our opportunity to “get rid” of our penalty on the final run. It looked as though we had executed the “penalty kill” perfectly as we had our opponent trapped to windward as we took them up, but the umpires again saw it differently and we were awarded a second penalty essentially ending the race. The loss was tough to take, but we felt very confident that we were fast and able to execute even the most difficult maneuvers.
Sunday was absolutely beautiful, with temperatures allowing for us to work on our tans while waiting for wind yet again. The organizing authority attempted to head into a second round robin, but eventually decided that the regatta should head to the final stage to properly finish the regatta. It looked like we were going to have our opportunity in the finals to win the regatta. The breeze filled in for the best wind of the weekend at 8-10 knots from the southeast. We had a solid split start with Carroll as they took the right and we took the left. The left paid and we lead down wind to the bottom mark where the boats tapped and Carroll received a penalty. The umpires decided that we took too much room and leveled the playing field with no penalties. As we went up the beat Carroll footed below us into a left puff and then proceeded to luff us which we thought was a 17 penalty, but the umpires later informed us that they didn’t think overlap was ever broken. They led the final downwind into the finish and took race 1. Race two we won the start and led around the track again until the bottom mark where Carroll did a nice job of passing us. We battled back nicely, but they held us off nicely to take the regatta win and 2nd place for Team SDYC.
We would like to thank the SDYC Challenge Committee for arranging this regatta with RVYC, the SDYC Competition Syndicate Fund, the SDYC membership, and Rick McElvain, Jim Dorsey, Shala Lawrence, and Dan Aeling for their help with training. We truly enjoyed our time in Vancouver and would recommend visiting RVYC or one of their 7 offshore stations in the Canadian southwest.