Regional, National and International Yacht Racing Updates

The pandemic has led to regatta math: there’s been a lot of subtraction, but also some addition.

The Pluses in the San Francisco Bay Area

The Corinthian Yacht Club will host the Pandemonium Regatta on August 30, a one-day doublehanded event for one-design boats. There will be recognition for the overall winner as well as mixed-gender teams. Bruce Stone will be competing with his J/105 Arbitrage. “Our objective in working with Corinthian Yacht Club is to offer chances to build experience with a training partner,” he said.

“If we have a great turnout, we’ll go for longer lengths a month from now. In this iteration, there will be a long course of around 25 miles for J/105s and J/88s; a medium course for Express 27s and J/70s; and a shorter course for smaller boats like Knarrs, Cal 20s, J/22s and J/24s. The start will be off of the west end of Angel Island.” The route will go just north of the Richmond Bridge followed by a beat out the Gate to Point Bonita and a spinnaker run to the finish at CYC in Raccoon Strait.

The OYRA has canceled its participation in this weekend’s Drake’s Bay Race, but the Singlehanded Sailing Society has figured out a way to hold the two-day event and opened registration over the weekend just past. This will be for singlehanded and doublehanded entries.

Updated Tuesday, August 28: The SSS will hold an online skippers’ meeting via Zoom on Thursday, August 20, at 7:30 p.m. (not on Wednesday as previously stated in the Sailing Instructions). Registration will remain open through Thursday. Racers will need to take their own finish times on Saturday and start according to the published starting sequence on Sunday, as there will be no race committee on station in Drake’s Bay.

Speaking of the SSS, they posted preliminary fleet results for August 8’s Round the Rocks over the weekend. We suspect that at least some of the ‘DNF’ (Did Not Finish) scores will be updated with finish times before the results are made final. Look for more on that race in Racing Sheet in the September issue of Latitude 38.

Added in Southern California

Long Beach Yacht Club has confirmed they will host the 2021 Seawanhaka International Challenge Cup on June 2-5. LBYC won the Seawanhaka Cup in 2019 sailing  in Match 40s in Oyster Bay, NY. The Cup is “a historic international challenge for the purpose of promoting small yacht racing and developing the Corinthian spirit among competing yachtsmen.” (And, presumably, yachtswomen too.)

But Subtract These in Locales Near and Far

“South Beach YC and Benicia YC regret to announce the September 5th Jazz Cup Regatta is canceled,” writes Patti Mangan of SBYC. “Everyone please stay safe, stay well, and we will see you in 2021!”

2020 Melges 24 US National Championship, originally scheduled for October 15-18 at Tred Avon YC in Oxford, MD, has been canceled due to regulations limiting the size of events.

The International Kiteboarding Association canceled the 2020 Formula Kite World Championships. Sardinia had planned to host both the Formula Kite Individual and Mixed Team Relay Worlds. Torregrande was to host the first Olympic-format Mixed Relay World Championship from October 13 to 18. The Individual World Championships had already moved from Weifang Binhai, China, to Cagliari, scheduled for October 6 to 11. In 2021, Weifang Binhai will host the Individual World Championships in September. Torregrande will host the Mixed Team Relay World Championship in October.

The Bahamas had originally planned to host the 2020 Star World Championship on January 31-February 8. But the impact of Hurricane Dorian on that region moved the event to Miami, FL, on November 13-21. Now it’s canceled due to health restrictions.