This past weekend, UCSD’s sailing tritons hosted the annual regatta in memory of Jeff Simon. With a total of 34 boats from 12 universities on the start line (an increase of 7 boats from last year), it was a great success for UCSD.
Saturday was a beautiful sunny day with high temperatures and a strong and steady wind. The conditions for a regatta were in other words, perfect! Being the first regatta of 2018 for many of us, excitement was in the air while we prepared the equipment and talked about tactics. Due to the exceptional moon-phase that resulted in the super blue blood moon, the tide was stronger than it usually is. The tide was the center of discussion regarding tactics for the day, “where should we be to benefit from the current it creates?” was a question often heard. Our fellow sailors from other universities started showing up at around 09.30 and prepared their boats for the day. Saturday was a very busy day at the yacht club since there was another regatta taking place as well as ongoing construction work at the old clubhouse, which resulted in us having to beach our boats. With unusually steady wind conditions in Mission Bay and the high numbers of boats, the starts where filled with action and inchwide margins that did not leave any room for error or doubtful judgement. I can proudly announce that no incidents occurred and an overall high level of sportsmanship was upheld. Sailing is a tough sport with often concentrated faces and intense yelling when trying to communicate and warn other boats with your own presence. The atmosphere back at the beach was fortunately the opposite with lots of laughter and smiles. The low-tide made itself known to our noses and feet at the end of the day when we had to go into the dark, sulphur-smelling, mud with our dollies to drag the boats up on land. Our sailors where visibly tired after all the sailing and the heavy sun when we left the club at around 5:30 PM.
Sunday was much the same for wind and tide conditions, but at this point our sailors were ready to face these conditions. With a postponement early in the day due to little wind, everyone was shocked and excited when the wind filled in much the same as it had the day before. After racing, our team held our annual raffle, in which many items, sailing related or not, are raffled off and all the proceeds going to charity. The team raised over $500 for the Autism Tree Project Foundation, located here in San Diego and very close to the heart of one of our volunteer coaches. We would like to congratulate University of Southern California for not only taking 1st place, but also 4th, 5th, and 6th – what an incredible weekend for their team! UCSD placed 11th, 20th, 26th, 33rd, and 34th in this competitive fleet. Many of our sailors had not sailed for a long time or had just started to learn how to skipper the boat themselves, including team member Erik. It was his first time skippering in a competitive setting and he said “My skippering definitely needs work, but the experience was very insightful into how much I have to learn.” We are very proud to have held and sailed in such a fun event and we are looking forward to our next regatta!
-Nils René and Erik Redburn ‘21