United States Coast Guard Academy - Department of Athletics - Offshore Sailing

Los Angeles, CA--(3/16/09)--This past weekend, seven cadets from the Coast Guard Academy’s offshore sailing team competed in the Port of Los Angeles Harbor Cup Regatta, the only intercollegiate big boat regatta on the west coast. For the first event of the season, the team practiced for two days prior to the official event; it was great to get out on the water in sunny California after a long winter of no sailing in New London.

Racing began on Saturday with a two and a half hour delay as the race committee waited for breeze. Eventually a light southeasterly breeze filled in with three foot swell and a strong current flowing west. The boat end of the starting line was very hotly contested since all of the teams expected the breeze to veer to the right. Coast Guard got caught in the melee at the committee boat a couple of times, and had some poor starts. The team demonstrated good boat speed, but didn’t finish as well as they hoped. After the first day of racing Maine Maritime led the standings, with Coast Guard in sixth, posting finishes of 7, 3, 7, 5, followed by the Navy in seventh.

On Sunday, the breeze was light again, and the swell and current still significant factors. The combination of light breeze and steep swells made downwind sail trim particularly challenging. The team was more aggressive on the starts, improved its boat handling as well. The team showed great consistency and posted finishes of 3, 3, 4, 4 in Sunday’s races to finish third for the day, but unfortunately remained sixth of eight overall.

This was the first intercollegiate big boat regatta for several members of the team, and the regatta was a great experience for the team as a whole. The team showed marked improvement throughout practice and the regatta, and the team will definitely benefit from this experience as they continue to compete this spring and summer.

The team would like to thank the Port of Los Angeles for its generous financial support of the regatta and the members of the Los Angeles Yacht Club for all of their efforts in organizing and hosting a great regatta. The team is especially grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Ripley for hosting us at their home during the event.

The Harbor Cup team consisted of:

3/c Cameron Welicka – bow
3/c Mason Cook – mast
3/c Virginia VanAmberg – halyards
3/c Jake McQuillan – headsails
1/c Brian Komlos – headsails
2/c Kevin Tongue – main
2/c Eric Johnson – helm