Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week 2024 - Day 2
by LBYC Race Office 23 Jun 14:21 NZST
June 21-23, 2024
Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week 2024 © Tom Walker
Day two at Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week gave everyone plenty of breeze starting in the mid-teens out of the west, and the gift for the day was extra wind with gusts of 20+ toward the end of the racing, noted Bruce Cooper, owner of Ullman Sails Newport Beach and event lead sponsor.
Most fleets sailed three races, racing was tight across all fleets with lead changes and new leaders emerging. In the J109 fleet, day one's three-way tie for first was decided when a port starboard incident occurred between Fuzzy Logic and Blue Crush, forcing Fuzzy Logic to retire with damage; the J109 Reverie moved into first place.
"We saw a lot of action out there with boats going fast and crews really being pushed to the limit," Cooper commented. "It was an excellent day and hopefully everyone will have hit the jacuzzi and rum bar tonight at Long Beach Yacht Club post-race party."
With two bullets and a second today, Ryan Cox on his boat DJ maintains his lead in the J70 class by two points over Cake owned by Ryan Eastwood.
"We've had some real tight races, it's been lots of fun and challenging, we have some really good people in the fleet," Cox noted. "It was a lot of hard work - you can get a little worn out sailing a J70 on a day like today when it's blowing like crazy and you're trying to jibe. It's tiring and I was happy to be driving and not pulling any lines! Cake was super-fast and tough to beat. They're typically Melges 24 sailors and really good racers, it's impressive that they have been doing so well going so fast not having a ton of experience in the J70. The breeze was pretty busy, enough so that our trimmer was having a hard time making adjustments!"
Taking three bullets today, Charlie Welsh on his boat Space Cadet leads the VX:One class with seven points, with Michelle Warner on Tudo Baes in second with nine points. Welsh, who has been racing the VX:One for four years, notes that the fleet is thoroughly enjoying its debut at LBRW.
"We're having so much fun being here and we're really grateful to ABYC and LBYC for having us," Welsh, from Newport Beach, Calif., said. "It's the first time that this class has had a race in Long Beach. It's been awesome Chamber of Commerce conditions, absolutely incredible, 14-18 knots out of the west, working the right side on the upwind and then just get where you can on the downwind. I'm super happy that Michelle trucked her boat from Florida plus a couple of guys in the fleet came from Canada to make this a six-boat fleet. We're looking forward to more boats next year."
Vitesse, the RP 52 owned and skippered by Tom Furlong is welcome eye candy at LBRW, as fast and graceful as she is. Racing in the Random Leg (RL) PHRF A fleet, Vitesse leads with three points after two races, a three-point lead over the J125 Javelin, owned and skippered by Dan Murphy. Furlong previously raced LBRW on his former boat, a Swan 42, and really enjoyed it. Because he does so much offshore racing, he wanted to mix it up and see what it takes to go inshore with the RP 52.
"The Random Leg course takes you inside and outside the breakwater with lots of turns which the Swan was really good at but not the long reach legs which the RP 52 is built to do," he said. "You have to turn around a lot of buoys, sail evolutions are a lot more up and down, and in and out, and have to be much crisper because of all the turns you are making. It's fun to put the boat in a different mode and do things that are different for us and it's a learning exercise for us on how we can do things faster; the finish today was close to the beach - it's a lee shore and we draw twelve feet so you don't want to mess up your spinnaker drop in that situation, or in traffic, there is so much traffic here! The boat is fast and inside the harbor we are ripping down at 18 knots - we eat up the mileage pretty quick and it's just a different intensity but very fun."
The Beneteau 36.7 fleet races just two days at LBRW, so Saturday was that fleet's day 1. After three races, Given-Ho, owned and skippered by Eric Hanson, leads the five-boat fleet, with three bullets.
"It was a beautiful Long Beach day, and with 20 knots of breeze that built from 14 knots, we had to make a call early on whether or not we were going to use our number one jib, the large 155, or the class rule three," Hanson said. "We decided we'd take a risk and be one of the first to put up the three and it paid off. A lot of our competitors were slipping sideways a little bit, a little over-powered, but we had the blade up and were able to point higher to windward on the reach and had great boat speed all day. Tomorrow we'll just focus on executing on the fundamentals of keeping the communication buttoned up as it always is on this boat, a quiet boat is a fast boat is what we always say, slow is smooth and smooth is fast, and sail fast with this awesome crew."
Results for all classes are available here.
The first race warning will sound at 11:55 AM on Sunday, the final day of racing for LBRW 2024. Conditions permitting, two races will be sailed in most classes. Prize giving will be held at LBYC on Sunday at 5:00 PM. Trophies will be awarded in many categories including the Catalina 37 National Championship, the J/109 Pacific Coast Championship, the Schock 35 Pacific Coast Championship, the Viper 640 Pacific Coast Championship, the Melges 15 West Coast Championship, and the J/70, J/80, J/105, J/109, and J/120 Southern California High Point Series.
Hosted by the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club (ABYC) and the Long Beach Yacht Club (LBYC), the event is grateful to the generosity and support of its 2024 sponsors including Title Sponsor Ullman Sails Newport Beach on hand throughout the regatta to assist the fleet with their sails. Other sponsors include Evans, Clarke Marine Insurance, Cabrillo Boat Shop, Durant Design and Construction, Long Beach Parks, Rec & Marine, Mt Gay Rum, Pirates Lair, The Oriana Shea Group, and Tom Walker Photography.