San Diego Yacht Club Yachting Cup - Day 1: Historic yachts making history

Yachting Cup - Day 1 © Simone Staff

There's something nostalgic about celebrating milestones that makes you look back at history and tradition. For five decades, San Diego Yacht Club's Yachting Cup has been a premier Southern California event, giving sailors from all over the country an opportunity to compete and make memories. Through those years, spectators and sailors alike have watched the event promote the sport and attempt to get as many sailors on the water as possible. This year, the 50th Anniversary of the Yachting Cup, is no different. In fact, if you take a look out on the race course, you might be able to spot some history for yourself.

For the first time ever at the Yachting Cup, Classic yachts and Navigators were invited to join a variety of classes in the Pacific Ocean for two days of racing. Sailing in a Classic fleet of seven is CF Koehler's 10 Meter Sally, out on the water for her 95th birthday. Her present? A bullet in today's only race.

An excerpt from Sally:

"I was built in Germany and came to the US with my thirteen sisters in 1927. We were the hot new youngsters on the Long Island Sound. I have seen a lot of boats come and go in my time. The big heavy ocean racing schooners, and then came the newer yawl rigged boats, my bigger cousins - the 12 meters, and J Class America's Cup boats. In my later life I sailed with the Cruising Club of America (CCA) designed boats, then the International Offshore Rule (IOR) fleet, and the ultralights. For some reason, the bigger the transom, the more I had to look at it."

Koehler added, "Something about history, is the more that it changes, the more it stays the same. Here we are, at the 50th anniversary of Yachting Cup, and think about how much the boats have changed since 1972. Now you're sitting on this boat, and it's 95 years old. Think about what's happened...and we're still sailing this boat."

Not quite as old, but still riddled with history, is David Koo's Columbia 50 Second Wind in the Navigator class. Crew Doug Phillipson said, "The Columbia 50 is a 1960s design thats been around the world six times. Our particular boat is especially heavy because of the star crafter kit so we have a skeg as opposed to a spade keel."

Phillipson jokes about his dog, Tinkerbell, sprinkling them on board with good luck. The team came in second in the class. Both the Navigator and the Classics classes sailed only one race today, starting on the far ocean course and finishing in San Diego Bay.

Current Class Leaders:

PHRF-1 Paul Dorsey's Fast 40 Adjudicator
ORR-1 Roy Disney's Andrews 70 Pyewacket
PHRF-2 Lonnie Jarvis' Far 400M Chronic
ORR-2 Standish Fleming's J/125 Nereid
PHRF-3 Jim Bailey's ID35 Destroyer
PHRF-4 John Laun's J/120 caper
OCR Oliver Michaelis' Farr 30 Troublespot
J/105 Rick Goebel's Sanity
Beneteau 36.7 Chick Pyle's Kea
Beneteau 40.7 Mark Stratton's Lugano
Classics CF Koehler's 10 Meter Sally
Navigator Dave Kettenhoffen's Columbia 50 Mi Sueno

As for our "less historic" yachts, there was still plenty of memories to be had out on the race courses. Paul Dorsey's Fast 40 Adjudicator won every race in the PHRF-1 class. New to the Yachting Cup, Dorsey is definitely making his mark in the event.

Mark Stratton's Lugano was the only other boat on the scratch sheet to win all three of today's races. Stratton has been making history with his crew for over 15 years.

"I've been sailing with the same people for 12-18 years. We've done a lot of sailing together, so you get a good feeling of when it's right and not right. Today we just all gelled together...it's a friendship," said Stratton.

In the ORR-2, the current standings show Standish Fleming's Nereid and Rudolph Hasl's Palaemon both with five points.

Yachting Cup - Day 1 - photo © Simone Staff

This morning, Fleming sat down with SDYC Director Alli Bell (and crew on caper). "We have the boat really optimized for offshore. We have to change the boat over, but more importantly we have to change our mentality for buoy racing. It's great to get the boat in as many different situations as we can and the buoy really helps us sharpen out crew work."

Fleming's plan going into day one was to "make it to the weather mark." Nereid is admittedly the smallest boat in the class.

The Beneteau 36.7 class reported extremely tight racing, especially for a longer course. Race Committee observed the fleet sticking together for almost the entirety of the race, keeping the calls pretty close. Even after four miles, boats were finishing overlapped.

Currently standing in first place for the Beneteau 36.7's is Chick Pyle's Kea. "We did a lot of adjustments in the puffs and the lulls. We started out with two bullets and got squashed at the start of the third race. If you've got good speed, good tactics, and good teamwork, sometimes you can over take. There are two boats behind us, so the complexity for tomorrow is going to be covering two boats. It should be really interesting," said Pyle.

Both the near and far Pacific Ocean courses averaged about 8 knots through the day with fluctuating breezes. The condition reported by multiple sailors was a beautiful, ideal day.

Tonight, sailors and guests were gathered in celebration of the 50th anniversary at the Mexican-themed, Saturday night party on SDYC's Main Deck, featuring chips and salsa sponsored by Chipz Happen, craft beer sponsored by Bay City Brewing, rum cocktails sponsored by Mount Gay Rum and Regatta Craft Mixers, and live music by Stylus Overhang sponsored by Southcoast Yachts.

Day two of Yachting Cup racing will begin again for all fleets with an 1130 warning signal. Post racing, an awards ceremony and party will take place on the Main Deck.

View the current standings here.

How to follow the Yachting Cup.