Author: Ole Eichhorn

In addition to running an awesome regatta for the 2024 North Americans, the Santa Barbara YC Race Committee also flew a drone, and have posted amazing footage of the racing which you can find on YouTube!

(from Ole Eichhorn, regatta chair)

Here’s a report on the recently concluded C-15 North Americans in Santa Barbara.  It was a great event; a massive Thank You (!) to the Santa Barbara Yacht Club, who were amazing hosts, and especially to Brad Schaupeter, Sailing Director (and regatta PRO), Kayla Householder, Club Event Coordinator, Jeff Berkus, Vice Commodore, and the many members who volunteered for race committee and to help run the events.

Thirteen boats participated, from Southern (Marina Del Rey, Santa Barbara, Seal Beach, Westlake Village) and Northern California (Half Moon Bay, Sacramento), and St Petersburg, Florida.  We also had a competitor from Sidney, Australia.  The Corp Series was held on Fri 8/9 (five races), and the Championship Series took place on Sat 8/10 – Sun 8/11 (nine races with one throwout).

I can’t do all the racing justice in this report, but I will say we were treated to a beautiful variety of conditions, with strong winds in the high teens on Friday, light winds 5-8 knots on Saturday, and medium winds 10-12 knots on Sunday.  The Race Committee did a perfect job with square lines and weather marks, enabling many passing lanes both upwind and down and lots of great competition.  With the sun on the ocean and with the city of Santa Barbara climbing the hills behind the harbor, it was a beautiful scene.

The stronger winds on Friday for the Corp Series created some interesting challenges for seeding competitors into A and B, as several boats turtled and others broke down.  After some discussion it was decided to sail everyone together in the Championship Series, award the A trophies to 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd places, and award the B trophies to 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th places.  It wasn’t a perfect solution but it seemed agreeable and resulted in great racing with everyone together on the line and out on the course.

The Results of the Corp Series may be found here:

2024 C-15 North Americans – Corp Series results

Congratulations to longtime C-15 sailor and champion Allison Jolly (1988 Olympic Gold Medalist!) who voyaged all the way out from Florida (St Petersburg YC) to sail with us, and who won the qualification series with her crew Andrew Sumpton.

On Saturday the winds were lighter, the sun was out, and we were able to get in five excellent races as planned.  Saturday night we had an excellent dinner at the YC followed by the C-15 Association’s Annual Class Meeting.  The Minutes from this meeting are shown below.  The most important business was choosing the next venue for the North Americans and Half Moon Bay are going to be our 2025 Hosts, with Lucy Gillies volunteering to serve as Class President.  (Choosing someone who runs a distillery is always a good idea.)

On Sunday the winds were Goldilocks, not too heavy, not too light, and we had four more excellent races to conclude the Championship.  The Overall Results may be found here:

2024 C-15 North Americans – Championship Series results

Congratulations to Dave Rumbaugh and his crew Steve Fishman from Lake Washington Sailing Club in Sacramento for five-peating as Class Champion.  The Fleet gave them a good fight but they prevailed in the end.  Silver went to Allison and Andrew, and Bronze to class newcomers Ryan Janov and Willie McBride of California YC in Marina Del Rey (who showed amazing speed in the heavy air Friday afternoon winning three races in a row).

My crew Carly Morgan and I finished fourth, from Westlake Village but sailing for Santa Barbara YC, and Vince Paternoster and Steve Miller finished fifth, for SCCYC in MDR.

The Cabrillo Results (B Fleet):

• Gold:    Mark Brazil and Frederique Haustete of SCCYC in Marina Del Rey
• Silver:  Lucy Gillies and Simon Bird of Half Moon Bay YC
• Bronze: Stanly Martin and Dana Longo of Half Moon Bay YC

Most interestingly and unexpectedly, Mark and Frederique actually tied on points for sixth overall with Wil Paul and Chris Peasley of Seal Beach YC;  Will and Chris won the tiebreak to take 6^th, and so Mark and Frederique finished 7^th and thereby won the Cabrillo Trophy.

Others in the competition included Marc Arseneault and Claire Sheehan, finishing 10^th for HMBYC, Arman Rezaee with his kids Simone and Malcom as crew, finishing 11^th, from HMBYC (Simone and Malcom are each future champions, I am sure; it was a joy to see them out there in the heavy stuff on Friday, having a great time without a care in the world), Carl Hage and Stevie Thompson, in 12^th, from HMBYC, and perennial class stalwart Charlie Quest with his crew Ofer Amir, also from HMBYC.  Charlie’s Grand Ol Gal (First in Class) had a few issues after spending a great deal of Friday afternoon upside down, but crew and vessel recovered overnight and were back on the water for the championship series.

A little 30 min video of some of the events and sailing action may be found here:

2024 C-15 North Americans Santa Barbara

Yes, it includes the infamous “there’s a boat in my boat” footage you may have seen on Facebook or Sailing Anarchy.  Yes, that happened.  (Apologies that the GoPro was on my boat for the racing; maybe in future we can incorporate some drone video.)

Speaking of drones the SBYC Race Committee did fly one on Fri and Sat, and we were treated to beautiful overhead videos of the racing to watch on Saturday night.  I’m working to get copies of these and will post and share when I can.

Cheers and see you all soon – maybe in Half Moon Bay next year!

The annually awesome High Sierra Regatta took place last weekend and there were six C-15s, who enjoyed the usual awesome wind, great racing, mountain lake vistas, and nice people.  Congrats to Dave Rumbaugh and Steve Fisher for winning all six races and repeating as High Sierra Champions.

I had a little GoPro running and have compressed five races’ worth of video into about 25 min; if you’re interested, here is a link:

C-15s at High Sierra Regatta

I apologize that the videos were all shot from my boat.  Maybe next year we fly a drone 😊

Racing action at the High Sierra regatta

As usual, Huntington Lake is stunning and amazing and a wonderful place to race sailboats

C-15s have sailed in the High Sierra regatta for over 50 years – we think the first year might have been 1971 – but until now there hasn’t been a perpetual trophy awarded to the winners.  Now there is one! – the James Holder Trophy has been created, in keeping with Fresno Yacht Club tradition a beautiful slice of tree, with a Laser engraved line drawing of a C-15 created about 40 years ago by Peter Drasnin. 

To the victors go the spoils – Dave Rumbaugh and Steve Fisher win the new James Holder perpetual for winner of the C-15 Class in the High Sierra regatta.  If you look closely you can see we’ve attempted to record all the previous winners.  The record is incomplete; if you know of someone who won in a particular year, please let me know!

In addition to winning the regatta Dave also demonstrated his awesome BBQing skills at the wonderful pot luck on Saturday night.  Many stories were told and some of them were even true.

Other great competitors included the venerable Charlie Quest, Lucy Gillies, Carl Hage, and Marcus Dyer.  See the video for racing action!

Next, another update on the upcoming C-15 North Americans in Santa Barbara.  Please sign up if you haven’t already:

https://www.sbyc.org/2024-c15-na-championship

I have an important note: North Sails and Ullman Sails have each agreed to help sponsor this regatta (!), and so the personalized mini-duffel bags / tote bags will now be free for all competitors.  If you sign up, please select the bag as an option, and we’ll make sure to get you a refund.  If you’ve already signed up but didn’t select a mini-duffel, please go back to edit your registration to select one.  This way we’ll be able to personalize a bag for you in time for the regatta.

And I’ll repeat my evergreen offer to matchmake between skippers who want boats and people who have boats that aren’t sailing and would be willing to charter.  I’ve already matched three and am happy to do more!

The regatta is shaping up nicely, we should have about 15 competitors including several champions and many ex-champions, not to mention a lot of super nice people.  And we guarantee warm weather, good wind, and a beautiful ocean venue.

Cheers and please stay tuned for more soon!

Hi all –

Hope you are having a great summer and sailing as often as possible.  Remember “time spent on the water is not subtracted from your total.”  Some notes:

• The High Sierra regatta is next weekend!  Please plan to attend – always a great regatta and place to sail.  Registration and info here: https://www.fresnoyachtclub.org/high-sierra-regatta

I raced a Laser at Huntington Lake last weekend (the first weekend of the High Sierra regatta), and it was gorgeous and amazing as always.  If you’d like to see three hours of racing compressed into 15 minutes, here’s a link: 240714 Laser HSR W1 D2 R3,4,5

• Please register for North Americans if you haven’t already:
  https://www.sbyc.org/2024-c15-na-championship

And see my note below regarding the mini-duffel / cooler bags … 

From an informal count it appears we’ll have about 15 participants, including some champions, ex-champions, champions from other classes, an Olympic Champion (!), and many great and friendly people.

• The Marina Del Rey fleet has been active all summer, sailing the “Shallow Water” series in the harbor, and “Sunstroke” races on Thursday evenings.  Averaging about 5 boats for each regatta out of about 9 boats active.  After 50 years we still have the most popular dingy in the harbor 🙂

A great innovation this year has been using “big boats” as the Race Committee.  This has allowed people to go out on the water as guests to watch the racing, entertaining for them and the sailors too.

• Thanks to the Half Moon Bay fleet for the update on the Vice Commodore Regatta below, which featured 7 C-15s.  Yay.

• Please keep your reports and pictures coming, and I’ll be delighted to relay.  We all like to read about and see C-15s racing in other places.  (Seattle fleet?)

Cheers and please stay tuned

Hi all, some C-15 updates…

First, if you haven’t registered for the North Americans yet – information and links below – please do so.  It makes it so much easier for me and the regatta team if we know who-all are coming.  Santa Barbara, August 5-11.

• The qualifier day (Friday), aka the Syd Corp series, in the longtime tradition of the class, will be a separate regatta solely for the purpose of seeding everyone into A and B for the Nationals.  If you can’t make it no worries, we’ll figure out the right Fleet for you.  It will be an excellent practice day and a lot of fun so do join us if you can.
• If you’ve registered you may have noticed an option for a personalized mini-duffel / 12-can cooler bag (pictured above right).  There will be two lines of white writing:
                         2024 C-15 North Americans
                         <your-choice: boat name, motto, etc>
  If you register soon enough we’ll be able to personalize them in time for the regatta, so please do so.
• I am continuing to matchmake people who want to charter a boat with people who have a boat for rent.  Recently two more good boats have become available, yay.  Please keep me updated if you’re looking for a boat or can’t sail and want to rent your boat out.
• Several of you have indicated you’re still looking for housing and I’m working on that too; please stay tuned.

Okay, now to the High Sierra regatta, which is in less than two weeks: July 20-21.  I hope to see you all there!  As previously mentioned, we have commissioned a new perpetual trophy to be awarded to the winner of the C-15 class at the High Sierra Regatta.  See pic above – it’s a gorgeous piece of wood, in the tradition of HSR trophies, lasered with a beautiful illustration of a C-15 made [many years ago!] by Peter Drasnin.  You will want to be there to compete for this trophy!  On top of all the other reasons to go and sail at this wonderful venue.

Next I’d like to relay a Half Moon Bay regatta report from Claire Sheehan (thank you for sharing!), about their recent Vice Commodore’s Regatta:

Hi Fellow sailors!

We had wind and fog, sun and fun!

More young women in crew positions than ever! Out of 7 boats, 5 had female crew and most were under 20!

But this guy, Charlie Quest, aged 80, takes the cake! Here with fellow sailors, John Eurich, Carl Hage and Eric Flynn.

David Rumbaugh and Stevie won 5 races. There were only 6!

Lucy Gillies in second with Natasha as crew.

Marc Arseneault and wife, Claire, came in third.

See you in Huntington!!

Claire

Cheers and see you soon