Olson 30 Nationals

June 6, 2010

A small but intense fleet of half a dozen Olson 30s met at Richmond YC for their 31st National Championship. They raced Friday-Sunday on the Berkeley Circle. We caught up with them on Saturday afternoon, when they sailed into the yacht club turning basin. The calm and sunny Richmond Riviera conditions at the club were welcome after the wet and windy racing. Beer and hors d'oeuvres followed by dinner were welcome too. "I feel beat!" said Jim Saylor from Dragonsong.

On Friday, the RYC Race Committee gave them three races in changeable, light conditions with wind shifts of up to 40-degrees. It was very tactical sailing under cloudy but dry skies.

Hot Betty lives on a trailer in Pt. Richmond's Brickyard Cove, while her owners live in Clovis. After this weekend, she's hitting the road for Huntington Lake and the High Sierra Regatta. ©2010 Sergei Zavarin/http://ultimate-yachtshots.smugmug.com

Saturday was a whole different day, with white caps and typical summer conditions. The high filled in, the valley heated up, and a fog-driven westerly raced down the Slot. The Olsons got three races: two doubles and one single. With wind up to 25 knots, it was more of a survival day, less tactical. The RC reported very clean racing, clean mark roundings, every boat right on the line at the start, right on the money, agressive, but no over-earlies.

The beautiful black, gold-trimmed Dragonsong was chartered to Jim Saylor and Ron Wagner from Nawiliwili YC on Kauai. "It's great to race in this cold, green shit for water," said Jim. "Actually I was born in Berkeley and lived here before moving to Kauai. I was amazed when on the first day of racing all these feelings of nostalgia came up." Nawiliwli YC has three Olson 30s and plans to build a fleet. "Every time someone does the Singlehanded TransPac on one, we think, 'How can we buy this boat? You guys don't need the hassle of shipping it home anyway.'" He is disappointed in the low turnout for the Nationals. "I counted all the boats on trailers just in Richmond and figured we could have had 10 or 12 boats out racing." Not to mention those in the water.

Dragonsong in the 2009 Doublehanded Lightship. ©2010 Erik Simonson/www.h2oshots.com

Jim and Ron put together a crew of Bay Area sailors, including Celeste Mirassou, Megan Hayes (a slender young woman who started out as rail meat and ended up as tactician), Ralph Wedge, a trimmer off TNT who sailed on Hoot in the Olson 30 Nationals three years ago and did foredeck this weekend, plus Nate and Mark, an Olson 30 owner who doesn't race. With seven crew, Dragonsong was a bit light, even though Olson 30s are only allowed 1,200 pounds in the Nationals. In regular races, they're allowed 1,300. (Not sure how you lose that extra 100 pounds.)

Designer George Olson is featured on the front of the T-shirts. ©2010 norcalsailing.com

Racing continued on Sunday. We expect results to be posted at www.olson30.org/Olson_30/Regattas.html.