2007 Catalina 38 Nationals Results

2007 Catalina 38 Nationals

The Results:

Shoreline YC, located in Long Beach, California, hosted the annual Catalina 38 Nationals on September 15th &16th. The races were held in outer harbor of Los Angles known as hurricane gulch. This year the wind pressure was low to moderate with some unusual conditions. In the first race a clean start was had, but banks of fog were rolling through with only about 100 to 200 feet of visibility. As this event was unexpected most of the race boats did not have their gps activated. After all the weather mark was only a mile from the start line. The six boats racing and the skippers are listed below with the order of finishing. This year’s racing was quite close. Lickity Split got three bullets, but they were “pushed” in every race. The start of the last race on Sunday was marred with the only protest of the series. The two boats starting next to the committee boat were early trying to burn off time & speed and were caught barging by a third boat on the hip of the second boat bringing the two weather boats head to the wind. The second boat was in the middle trying to come up and avoid contact with the first boat. The first boat (next to committee boat) was paralleling the second boat unaware of the third lee boat driving the situation. The two weather boats could have avoided the protest by coming head to the weather until the situation passed and possibly being over early- the first boat was over early anyway. A better strategy is to avoid the committee boat unless you have a very clean lane. This protest was dismissed with a friendly discussion as the results would not have changed the final standings.

The race fleet had a surprise visitor from the Great Lakes region- Bob Porter. He happened to be here on business and dropped in on the pre-race skippers meeting and asked if anybody needed a crew. He was immediately picked up by skipper David Ross on Big Ben. From post race discussions, Bob had a good weekend! The writer learned hence that Bob skippered his Cat38 to a third in class in this years Chicago to Mac race. There is a superb picture of his start of the race, with the Chicago high rises in the background, shown in the October issue of SAILING WORLD magazine. Having out of area skippers participating at the Nationals adds another dimension to our racing.

For those who haven’t attended Nationals, the following is a description of what it is presently about. First, Nationals is a strict one design regatta adhering to the “Catalina-38 Class Racing Rules & Specifications” There are five races over two days. Each race is a windward/leeward configuration with the marks about one mile apart. The start/finish line is located ¼ of a mile directly up wind of the leeward mark. Depending upon the wind velocity, there could be as many as four laps called for. The host YC arranges for slips (free if available) and provides for a no host dinner Saturday evening and provides a meeting room at the end of the regatta for the awards ceremony. The Catalina 38 Association provides snacks and the trophies for the post ceremony, which is paid for mainly from Nationals entrance fee- in ’07 it was $70.

RESULTS:

Boat Name Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Race 5 Total
Lickety Split 1 2 1 2 1 7
Super Star 2 1 3 4 3 13
Santa Susana 3 3 4 1 4 15
Bilbo Baggins 4 5 2 5 2 18
Big Ben 5 4 5 3 5 22
Hassle 6 6 6 6 6 30

 

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