April Racing Preview

April Showers Us with Regattas

All of a sudden our race calendar has gotten quite full. A few highlights include:

• April 5-7 — Etchells Midwinters West, San Diego Yacht Club.
• April 6 — The 2019 YRA racing season kicks off with Summer Series #1 hosted by Berkeley YC.
• April 6-7 — St. Francis YC hosts J/Fest, while BYC hosts the Wheeler Regatta.
• April 13 — The third race in the SSS season, Round the Rocks, takes single- and doublehanded racers on a Bay Tour. SSS; and the Interclub Series gets underway south of the Bay Bridge.
• April 13-14 — San Francisco YC’s Resin Regatta invites Melges 24, Etchells, J/70, J/24, Cal 20 and Folkboat classes. SFYC. Richmond YC will welcome more diminutive boats in the Big Dinghy Regatta.
• April 15 is the deadline to sign up for the Race to Alaska, which will start from Port Townsend on June 3. “I dare you,” says the invitation to enter.
• April 26-28 — Monterey Peninsula YC will host the Ultimate 20 Pacific Coast Championship.
• April 27 — El Toros sail from Sausalito to San Francisco in the Bullship Race. Sausalito YC’s Twin Island Series will kick off. On Clear Lake, Konocti Bay Sailing Club will host the Konocti Cup, a 26- or 13-mile race for PHRF boats, one designs, multihulls and non-spinnaker entries.
• April 27-28 — Folsom Lake YC’s Camellia Cup welcomes trailer-sailors. And we finish this list where we started, with Etchells at SDYC, this time for their PCCs.

Springing Out the Gate

The ocean racing season gets underway tomorrow in a big way with BAMA’s Doublehanded Farallones Race and continues on April 6 with Island YC’s Doublehanded Lightship; sign up by Monday the first to save $10 on the entry fee. Then, OYRA will sail out the Gate for the first time this year on April 27’s Lightship Race.

Match-Racing Action

Long Beach and St. Francis Yacht Clubs host high-level match-racing action in April. The 55th Congressional Cup will welcome Grade 1 competition on April 3-7, following the Ficker Cup on March 29-31. The Ficker Cup will determine the final two spots in the Congo Cup. They’ll join the likes of Taylor Canfield (USA), Johnie Berntsson (SWE), Will Boulden (AUS), Nicklas Dackhammar (SWE), Nick Egnot-Johnson (NZL), Ian Williams (GBR), Scotty Dickson (USA) and Maxime Mesnil (FRA). Past America’s Cup skipper Dean Barker won last year’s Ficker Cup, advancing to the Congressional Cup final before falling 3-1 to future America’s Cup helmsman Taylor Canfield. Racing will be held in Catalina 37s.

The following week, the action moves north to StFYC, host of World Sailing’s Nations Cup Grand Finale. The Nations Cup will bring 20 of the top-rated international match-racing skippers and their crews to compete in the Open and Women’s divisions in J/22s. This event was last raced in 2015 in Russia. Both the defending champions will be racing in 2019 — Russia’s Vladimir Lipavsky in the Open Division, and, in the Women’s Division, local sailor Nicole Breault, a member of the hosting club.

And the Rest…

Many more worthy events crowd the schedule; check them out in our Calendar in the April issue of Latitude 38, coming out on Monday the first. Beer can season is getting underway too; we’ll have a preview in Monday’s ‘Lectronic.