July 7, 2014

Skip Shapiro traveled south to Alamitos Bay for Long Beach Race Week on June 27-29 and filed this report:

More than 140 boats competed in 15 classes with one design and two PHRF divisions completing seven around-the-buoy races, and four other PHRF divisions sailing three long-distance races, over the three-day regatta. The largest one design class was the Viper 640 (22 boats), followed by the J/70 (15 boats). Three J/70s represented the San Francisco Bay Area – sailed by Chris Kostanecki, Justin Kromelow, and Chris Anderson – as well as many crew members from NorCal sailing in several classes, such as Jim Antrim (Class 40 Yippy Kay Yay) Seadon Wijsen (J/70 Perserverance), Dave Hodges (SC 52 Prevail), Will Paxton (SC 70 Grand Illusion), and Andy McCormick (J/70 Jennifer).

The Melges 20 class had five boats, four of which were from SF Bay, skippered by Charles James, Elliott James, Skip Shapiro and Daniel Thielman. My crew consisted of Paul Allen from Santa Cruz as tactician and Evan Sjostedt as trimmer. Evan was a member of the AYSF Red Bull Youth America's Cup team last year.

The Melges 20s were the only class to race on all three race courses. Friday's two races were held on the outermost course in an 8-12 knot southerly breeze. We won both races and led each race most of the way.

In Saturday's three races inside the Long Beach breakwater, we shared the course with the Catalina 37s, J/70s and J/24s. The wind was again from the south and not quite a strong, probably no more than 10 knots except for a few brief 12 knot puffs.

Race 1 on Saturday. "It looks like we're in the lead, but this is the race we finished third and that is our place when this photo was taken," said Skip. ©2014 David McBride

We finished third in Saturday's first race after hitting the right corner on the first upwind leg and over-standing the weather mark by a lot. We had a chance to catch the second place boat, but a badly executed spinnaker hoist followed by a poor jibe on the last run eliminated that opportunity. We won the final two races of the day, and each race involved multiple lead changes with Elliott James on Problem Child. Decisions on which side of the course was favored upwind and finding the most consistent puffs downwind proved to be critical. After five races, we led James by 2 points.

Makaira heads upwind at a gate rounding. ©2014 David McBride

For Sunday's final two races we were on the closer outside course along with the four long-distance race divisions and two PHRF around-the-buoys classes. The wind was from the southeast – we never saw the true south-westerly 15-knot breeze for the regatta – and weaker than the previous two days: wind strength was 4-10 knots. Once again we were in dogfights with James, the most dramatic of which occurred during the first race of the day.

On the two upwind legs of a two-lap windward-leeward downwind finish course, we each got separated from the other. James was first around the weather mark on the first lap and we passed him on the run. We each rounded a different gate mark and James got separation as we both tried to avoid the bad wind around the larger PHRF boats on the course. James had a three boat-length lead at the second weather mark, and we took the opposite jibe in an attempt to close the gap. When we met again after we'd both jibed, we had gained a boatlength or slightly more and so we split jibes with James again. When we met again, about two-thirds of the way down the final run to the finish, we were within a boatlength of James, so we jibed behind him to get on his air. After several minutes of side-by-side racing, with alternating parallel reaches up and dives down with James trying to hold us off, we were finally able to overrun him only a few minutes above the finish line. We then held our lead to win the race. It was the tightest boat-on-boat racing I'd done in a while and very satisfying to come out on top.

We finished the day and the regatta with another race win, but not without more lead swaps with James, although there was no need for a late final run pass this time.

The Makaira crew at the awards presentation. ©2014 Rob Rice

Our final score was 6 bullets and a third, to James' 6 seconds and a first. The result was my first regatta win since I bought the Melges 20 nearly two years ago, and the satisfaction that I was finally able to put many of the lessons I've learned along the way into consistent execution. I look forward to the next regatta on SF Bay (Summer Keel on August 16-17), the Melges 20 PCCs on September 27-28 and the NAs on October 3-5, all to be hosted by San Francisco YC.

– Skip Shapiro, Makaira, Melges 20

For complete results and more photos, see www.lbrw.org.