Jimmie Lowe from Nassau Yacht Club sent Commodore John Reiter a thank you note regarding the 2017 International Masters Regatta. We are grateful for his words and wanted to share them this holiday season.
Chris Nesbitt and his San Diego Yacht Club team narrowly beat Long Beach Yacht Club’s Dave Hood by about one-meter in the last race of the regatta, Nov. 5, to win the 2017 World Sailing Grade 4 Butler Cup, thus becoming a three-time winner of this event hosted by the Long Beach Yacht Club and raced on the Long Beach Sailing Foundation’s fleet of Catalina 37s.
The San Diego Yacht Club Team Race Team returned to the Soiland Cup for the second consecutive year after a tight second place finish the year before. The event, hosted by Southern Yacht, began Friday morning with a light Northerly breeze. It was our teams goal to get back into Flying Scot mode as fast as we could and continue to improve as the event went on. We had finished the first day with all wins and we had been feeling strong after a few tight races.
Our team of Mike Nicoletti on bow, Jake Mayol on mast, Brock Paquin jib trim, Travis Wilson spinnaker trim, Max Mayol main trim won the 2017 Butler Cup Match Race Regatta last weekend. This is the second Catalina 37 event our team has participated in and won this Fall up in Long Beach, representing San Diego Yacht Club.
The conditions were breezy and although our first race on Saturday morning was cancelled after we had built an early lead, due to some large early morning shifts, the direction eventually settled in well enough for the race committee to fire off a full double round robin of races. We lost one race due to a loose cover and a right shift on Saturday which left us tied for first going into Sunday.
On Sunday we kept our covers tighter and managed to win out the third and final round robin and the event. Our last race was the closest margin of victory as we saw our early lead erode due to a left pressure and angle build on the final run. Our jibe back to starboard to protect the finish line was just in time as we finished that race overlapped with the local Long Beach team who were sailing very well.
Our finish result qualifies us for the 2018 California Dreamin' match race series and we look forward to representing SDYC next year at those three events.