Last weekend our SDYC team traveled to San Francisco to match race J22’s at the 2019 California Dreamin’ Series stop #1 (of 3 to be held). Our team of Mike Nicoletti, Kara Voss and Drew Guay arrived to the St. Francis Yacht Club early on Saturday morning to weigh in, attending the competitors briefing and rig & tune up. We were met with cold weather, rain and breeze on conditions. I got off to a slow start earning us a black flag in race 1 for some overly aggressive maneuvers. However we recovered quickly and only lost one more race the rest of the day. By Sunday the rain had let up but so had the wind and the current was ripping now, so the competition and racecourses were fierce. We finished most of the second round robin on Sunday before the breeze completely died and a lightning storm arrived winning all but two races (one of which we led at the last weather mark in) and did well enough to earn second overall. Since this was the first regatta of the season for our team (and we had a new teammate as well), we were glad to have had the opportunity to sail together across a wide range of conditions the SF bay can deliver. This event gave us a solid foundation to build on as we go into the May United States Match Race Qualifier to be held in the same venue and boats in two months time. Meanwhile, In two weekends (March 23rd) we head to Long Beach to race Catalina 37’s in the Butler Cup, followed a week later by the Ficker Cup, a Grade 2 event.
We would like to thank the Comp Fund and SDYC for supporting our match racing in 2019 and our team is looking forward to more successful results in the many match race events still to come this season.