South Designate
Over the weekend of April 9th-10th, the UC San Diego Sailing team traveled to Long Beach, California to participate in the South Designate, one of the major qualifying regattas of the year. Nine of our members went to participate in the completion, one more than the standard number because one skipper was only able to participate on Sunday. Due to this fact, I sailed with two different skippers over the weekend, a somewhat novel experience as I usually sail with Sam Rohrbach during regattas. On Saturday, I sailed in the B division, crewing for Yan Rui. After a fairly rapid two races by the A division competitors, B went out to sail. On both days, the course consisted of a rather long upwind and downwind leg, but there were no reach marks or other restrictions on out sailing. In the first race, the course became incredibly skewed, as competitors were able to reach to both the upwind and downwind marks. Due to the bizarre angles and some bad luck rounding, we has some trouble on the first race. However after the first race ended the course was fixed and out second race was much better.
After another rotation by A division, B division went out once more for a planned two races. The first race of the set was once again mediocre due to a poor start and somewhat skewed race course that favored a port lay line for reaching the windward mark. For the fourth race, we had an incredible start, going pin side and reaching the line well ahead of many of the other competitors who suffered from the line sad, allowing us to sail freely up to the windward mark. Unfortunately, despite rounding the mark third, the wind began to cut out on the downwind leg, causing all the boats to be stuck drifting down the course. After drinking most of the wat to the leeward marl, the race committee chose to abandon the race and towed all the boats back to the dock, ending the first day of sailing.
On the second say, I was back to sailing with Sam as we headed out for three races to complete the second and third sets. The weather on the second day proved somewhat less shifty during the races, and the first several races all started fairly square, but the lack of rain during the races made everyone happier. On our first race, we were able to catch a large number of boats despite a somewhat poor start, allowing us to reach the middle of a much divided fleet. The next two races we has somewhat more trouble, as we lost boats on several upwind legs despot passing boats on the downwind legs. After eventually finished the third set of race, we headed back in so that A division could being their third set. After A completed their two races, we headed back out for the final two races of the regatta. During out first race we struggle quite a bit as our jib tension proved too low for an increased level of win, making it difficult for us to point on the upwind legs and causing us to lose boats. However, for out next race we were able to fix the jib tension and other rigging items, allowing us to sail more effectively. As such, out final race proved one of our best, and an excellent way for us to close out the regatta. After we finished, A division headed back out for their final races before the regatta came to a close. All in all, the varsity finished 8th/30 and JV finished 21st/30. UC San Diego placed 5th/17 schools.
Christoph Steefel
