Season Champions, Part III —The YRA and SSS
On November 16, sailors and organizers from the Yacht Racing Association got together at St. Francis Yacht Club for an end-of-the-year trophy party and prize-pickup gathering. In this final part of our annual three-part “Season Champions” series, we profile the 2024 YRA series winners.
YRA Offshore Series: Andy Newell continues to race and win in his Santana 35 Ahi. He also serves as the YRA’s offshore racing coordinator. As racers, he and his crew like a variety of venues. “We do pretty much everything we can fit in the calendar among the full-crew weekend races,” says Andy. “Among the Offshore Series races, my favorites are the ones where we actually go somewhere besides just around a buoy. That would be Half Moon Bay with the party at the end, and Drake’s Bay with the raft-up,” he said, commenting on the latter weekend-long event on August 10-11. “I see a pattern here. Farallones is fun, but the weather did not cooperate this year.”
The YRA Full-Crew Farallones Race had been scheduled for June 15. On June 14, Andy wrote in an email to the registered skippers, “As we suspected, NOAA has issued a gale warning for both 0-10 and 10-60 nm offshore through Sunday morning. This means that we will not be sending the fleet to the island but will instead use Course 2 and stay in the Bay.” Course 1, around the Farallones, is 58 miles, while Course 2, a Bay Tour, was 22.32.
“It really does take a village to campaign a boat that sails with eight crew,” says Andy. “Most of our 2024 roster made at least one offshore race: Alexey Sobolev, Bruce Boles, Cyril Collock, Darby Brown, Fernando Rosero, Hemang Mehta, Jeff Raby, Ian Kallen, Joe Dick, Mark Schieble, Tony Barker, Valerie Suzawa, Vijay Kesavan and Vincent Thivierge.
“In 2024, as is the case with any even-numbered Pacific Cup year, we got a bit lonely toward the end of the offshore season, since many of our usual players were doing the round trip to Kaneohe. Thanks to the hearty few that kept us company in the last couple of races.”
Nick Grebe’s Santa Cruz 37 Wildcard topped the PHRO1 Division. “The entire crew was ecstatic with our win this year,” says Nick. “It was a closely contested and hard-won series with lots of triumphs and frustrations. Consistency really was key. Showing up for every race and racing hard paid off, even without a lot of bullets and many frustrating ‘so-close’ finishes.
“We were bummed the weather didn’t cooperate for the Farallones Race, but completely agreed the RC made the right call there. A surprising number of Wildcard’s crew hasn’t been around those rocks yet!”
Read about the rest of the YRA and SSS champions here.
And in case you missed them, you can read “Season Champions” Part 1 here; and Part 2 here.