High Sierra Report + NA update Santa Barbara

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!