Nico Cottone, Cleveland YC

Ed. Note:  This makes six boats with their own home pages that I know of.  If you have one, let me know and I'll add it on the Links page.

Pacific Coast Championship

The new millennium continues to offer up some unusual weather conditions. This year's boatscape.com/North Sails Race Week was strongly influenced by the approach of Hurricane Charlotta riding up the coast of Baja. On Friday, the fleet found that the typical prevailing west-southwesterlies and heavy wind conditions we look forward to were nowhere to be seen. Instead the Southern jetstream was drawing tropical moisture off the hurricane and dished up a light air race in which Mischief reveled by starting off the left and and banging the left corner of the race course.

On Saturday, we moved to the inside race course and saw the wind settle down to little bit more normal breeze including a second race which saw No. 3's used for the first time this year by the fleet. Despite the changing conditions, the leaderboard look much the same with Mischief posting two seconds and Wings taking two bullets for the day. Meanwhile, Claudia on Whistler had enlisted the aid of Ron Baerwitz who was in town from New Jersey to assume fourth position while Outlier had posted a consistent 2,3,3, to move into third position.

By Sunday, it was quite clear that the the trophies were to be divided up by the aforementioned four boats; however, Charlotta dished up another twist of nature for the fleet this year when the race started in so little wind that five minutes after our gun had gone off the Olson 30 started generally only 7 to 10 boat lengths behind the Schock 35 fleet. Limping upwind, Mischief was able to leverage a perfect time to run at the committee boat and for an early lead; but, the wind gods continued to toy with the fleet for the balance of the race throwing out 30 to 40 degree wind shifts with no apparent pattern. As a result, boats like Whiplash and Power Play that found themselves very deep on the first weather leg were suddenly thrown back to the top by the end of the first downwind leg. Unfortunately for Outlier to jibes into the middle on this leg pretty much ended their chances of beating Wings or Mischief for the regatta. Ron and Claudia meanwhile had used the left side of the upwind leg to be so far into first-place that they were effectively an entire phase of wind shifts ahead of the fleet, and took a very easy victory for the race, with Wings and Mischief pulling second and third respectively.

Going into the last race, the Pacific Coast Championship was either Wings' or Mischief's to be had as Mischief led Wings by one point. Following an incident at the pin end of the line, Wings popped out of the melee unscathed, sailed into a sudden freshening breeze out of the left side, tacked onto port and would never be passed again for the remainder of this one lap race. Things were interesting for the fleet has everyone had light No.1's up, and the wind was suddenly blowing 16 knots true. Despite Wings great fortune, Mischief was right on their tail at the weather mark as the fleet flew downwind in double file formation to either side of the restricted start finish line and thence to the leeward gate. Although the wind was now blowing and 15 to 18 true, almost the entire fleet chose heavy No. 1's and were overpowered for the short half-mile beat to the finish line. Many in the fleet wished we had a second lap on the race now that we had the wind conditions we look forward to in Long Beach, but the race committee had to get us back to the dock after the inordinately long race in light air that started the day. Wings did beat Mischief to the finish line and ended tied for the regatta. On the tiebreaker Wings had three firsts to Mischief's one and therefore successfully defended their title as Pacific Coast champion of the Schock 35 fleet. After their fifth on Friday, Wings comeback was a tough one. To do it, they beat Mischief in the last four races in a row -- each time by only one position! Third overall went to Whistler which had a strong one, four finish on Sunday while Outlier suffered from a letdown taking a six, nine, and finished only two points further back.

Overall Volvo Inshore Champion was also Wings with White Fang second and Piranha third. The VIC 2000 was made up of the SDYC Yachting Cup, Cal Race Week and boatscape.com/North Sails Race Week.

Results of the regatta are at: http://www.premiere-racing.com/nsrw/nsrw_results.htm

Thanks to Mike Segerbloom and his group for their race management through the weekend and Bruce Golison, Margo and Jay for putting on their usual great event.

California Race Week

Once again (and for every regatta our class has sailed as part of the Season Championship circuit for a few years) S-35's were the largest class at the event.  For the third time this year, Wings came away the winner, although the racing was very even throughout the fleet.  As a statement of how tight the fleet was, perennial class favorite and defending Cal Race Week champion Mischief finished only one point ahead of last (reminds me of Laker/Portland game two - better watch out at PCC's as they'll be out for blood!)  Minnesota Fast sailing with Bill Menninger won the last race to take second place for the regatta edging out Whistler on the third tie breaker, and White Fang sailed a consistently strong regatta to take fourth.

Fog!  For the third time in four Season Championship events in 2000, mother nature stepped in on Sunday and prevented the intended number of races from being run.  W.D. Schock saw too much wind, NOOD saw too shifty a wind, now it wasn't possible to see the other end of the starting line and get the race off.  Well actually, only a few minutes after the last race was abandoned it was a beautiful sunny day, but you sure wouldn't have believed it possible from the starting area which was socked in solidly.  Once again, lots of boats would like to have had that last race to move up with, but it wasn't meant to be.

Big move of the regatta was Wings taking third on Saturday after being over early at the start.  Not a regatta for the conservative tactician, the center of the upwind leg was often death due to the chopped up wind from the Farr 40's and 1D35's, so even overstanding left side layline often paid big rewards. 

For the season, unless they have a mast failure, Wings looks like a lock on the Class Championship and Chayah is solidly second and looks good to win the Corinthian Fleet Championship.  Second through sixth is now only separated by three points with Whistler making the biggest move of the week up to third overall for the season followed by Mischief, Outlier and Piranha.  With two events to go it will be interesting to see how it works out.  At PCC's, no IR's are permitted and the finale is the overnight race from Santa Barbara to King Harbor.

Lipton Cup 2000

In a very well-sailed come from behind effort, San Diego YC defended its title in the 85th running of the Lipton Cup.  In the regatta there were really two battles - the one between the mega- budget teams with all new sail inventories, etc. and the battle in the more, shall we say, corinthian fleet.  The victory by Hotspur was something of an upset after watching Kathmandu dominate in their local waters two weeks earlier and come out with a 2-1-1-3 to start the regatta.  Although the first 2 was later erased by a DSQ, thankfully that was not the difference between winning and losing as Hotspur would have won either way.  Nonetheless, the racing was generally very close with one leeward rounding in particular being the memorable moment of the regatta seeing all ten boats arriving simultaneously.  SDYC/Hotspur had rounded the weather mark in 8th, but popped out of the cluster in 1st in what was probably the most important part of the regatta for their victory. 

SDYC did a splendid job hosting the event and will do so again next year.  I highly recommend clicking over to www.sdsailing.com if you have a high speed connection for a number of good high resolution photos.

Final Official Results:

SDYC Yachting Cup

The 1st stop on the Volvo Inshore Championship schedule saw a rare picket fence finish for the Coronado YC Lipton Cup team.  Lipton Cup teams from 8 yacht clubs were represented with only Balboa, Cal and Santa Barbara YC's not present.  Second went to Wings which itself had a string of three 2d's and two 3d's but never could break through Kathmandu which won every race despite not leading at the first weather mark on more than one occasion.  Third and fourth went to Hotspur and Piranha respectively.  Interestingly, these four took the top four spots in all five races save once. The racing was close though with only a few boatlengths separating the top boats in each race.

It was a perfect weekend for racing with heavy #1's seen on almost every weather leg.  The SDYC race committee did a superlative job with square lines and courses and with the consistent breezes, all three races were three lap affairs.  On Sunday we were even treated to a bonus - we got to watch the 100+ mph powerboats racing on San Diego Bay which was closed to traffic while the racing took place.  All in all it just couldn't have been a better weekend for sailing.

Even though Yachting Cup was not a part of our Season Championship Series for 2000, our class was nonetheless the largest one-design class at the regatta. 

From Rich Roberts: "A shocker in the competitive Schock 35s, where Willem van Waay drove Fred Kirschner's Kathmandu to five consecutive wins.  Kathmandu's performance on the inside South Bay course appeared to come from tactics and boat handling more than any speed advantage. Dennis and Sharon Case, whose San Diego boat Wings is a perennial Schock 35 class leader, gave full credit.  "We're in awe," Sharon Case said. "I've never known any boat to pull in five aces in a regatta - not in this class."  Dennis Case said van Waay is "a great starter [and] very tough to deal  with, but it's not just him, it's the whole program."

Ensenada 2000

From what I can glean off the net, it looks like Stratagem won the class bragging rights for the S-35's finishing 15 minutes ahead of White Fang in second.  Winning time was 24 hours 23 minutes 20 seconds - fairly typical time for Schock 35's in this race.  Five boats participated this year including Whiplash, Magic and Slippery When Wet.  In PHRF-C standings, Stratagem, White Fang and Whiplash appear to have finished 2d, 3d and 5th overall, but I don't have corrected times.

View From The Front (written by Mark Hinrichs - owner of Stratagem)

After more than an hour delay by the race committee, the 53rd Newport to Ensenada race is underway. We are Mexico bound with only 5 souls onboard: Ron Johnson, Ardis Young, Jeannie Goodwin, my son Mac, and myself.

A great start by Ron at the committee end of the line (squeezing out number of boats), and we are off (under the #3 at first, which proved to be too conservative, as the wind did not build until later.) We sail high, on the wind, make a sail change to the heavy #1 and watch the rest of the PHRF-C fleet crack off and move out on down-range. The wind is moving steadily to the west/northwest. We stay on the wind until we are sailing 200°, and then keep that heading while easing until almost dark, when the call is made for the kite set before we lose the last of the daylight.

Just after dark, Mac is suffering from a bad case of mal-de-mer, and Jeannie is down with a migraine. Just three of us now. What a great night for sailing a Schock 35. Under the stars, about 15 to 17 knots of breeze, and enough of a quartering sea to provide many moments of excitement. Ron sleeps while Mark drives, with Ardis keeping company and providing lasagna, candy bars, and coffee through the night (thanks, Ardis). About 4 AM, the breeze begins to die, and the helmsman is beat. Ron takes over to fight out the hard part of the race in dying breeze, and I go below.

7 AM comes. Next to zero breeze, however, the large left-over swell is still pushing us in the good direction at about a knot. Ron is working hard at keeping the boat moving. Finally, the wind comes back to stay about 9. We put the ‘chute back up, and . Looking around, we see no boats in our class at all. We don’t know if that is good or bad, but we are a long way down the course, and moving well.

We gybed at last in about 20 knots (only briefly wrapping it around the headstay), tuning into the bay, and smoked on down to Ensenada with sustained 8’s and 9’s. We now go DDW, and start looking at the finish line. There are two boats, but only one has a visible R/C flag. We can just make it through the two boats without another gybe, but not if we need to cross between the boat and the inflatable mark. We decide that it must be an R/C boat, and sail the last 5 minutes by the lee, praying that our decision is the right one (‘cause I don’t want to wrap the ‘chute again). Our decision is the right one, we finish, and then take the boat to the fuel dock at the Coral Marina to prepare it for delivery back to S.D. that evening..

We had no idea how we did at the time, but we felt that we had sailed our race -- the race we wanted to-- no matter how we finished. That felt good.

Lipton Cup LXXXV

This year's defense will be held out of the San Diego Yacht Club after the win last year by Vince Brun who led the SDYC team sailing Hotspur to two bullets and two seconds on the first day and coasted home with a 3, 1, 4 on the second day yielding a total only half that of the next closest team, defending champion Coronado YC.  As of this time it appears that eleven yacht clubs will participate this year.  In a bit of a surprise, the Lipton Cup Committee chose to again run the regatta inside in the South Bay below the Coronado Bridge.  Many thought that with SDYC's victory, the Cup would move outside to the Coronado Roads rather that the inside where Coronado Cays and Coronado YC's chose to stage their defenses in '98 and '99.

Since 1992, the Lipton Cup has been run in Schock 35's, replacing the IOR's boats of another era.  Of the boats entered, prior winners include 5 time winner Katmandu (4 times for Balboa YC as "Buttercup" with Dave Ullman driving from '93-'96 and in 1998 for Coronado YC with Robbie Haines at the helm then called "Wild Thing")  Shillelagh (1997 winner for Coronado Cays YC with Neville Wittey steering) and Hotspur (1999 for San Diego YC see above).

The San Diego YC has set up a great website for the event this year including an interesting history of the event worth checking out at http://www.sdyc.org/liptoncup.htm and Santa Barbara YC has a web page devoted to their team's efforts to win the Cup at  http://www.sbyc.org/2000Lipton.htm

Note:  I had previously thought this was the 97th running of the Lipton Cup; however, there were years including WWII in which no races were run, so although the first running of the event was in 1904, this is the 85th Lipton Cup.

Ahmanson Cup 2000:

Two things stand out about this year's Ahmanson Cup:

1) With 18 boats in class, and the only other fleet even able to get a one-design class together at all being our little brothers the Santana 30/30's, if you want to race one-design keelboats in Southern California, you'd better get a Schock 35!  J-105's, J-120's, 1D35's were all invited but no showed.

2) Wings won the regatta for the fifth consecutive year!

Newport Beach once again served up it's typical dose of unpredictable winds.  Sailing on the near course, left shifts were as equally possible at any given time as were righties.  Even on the last beat of the day on Sunday as the wind shifted to the right to 220 and built to 11 kts. true, the last shift was a lefty that really scrambled the fleet.

Big news on Day 1 was the huge lead enjoyed by Absolute which stood atop the leader board with a 5-1-3 for a mere 9 points.  Unlike most regattas in which the lead boats all have only single digit finishes, many of the typical leaders found themselves looking at the transoms of the fleet.  Examples:  Mischief (12), Outlier (10), Whistler (14), Chayah (11) and Piranha (15).  Even eventual winner Wings took a 15th in race #2!

Unfortunately for Absolute, Day #2 didn't go so well, and Wings returned to the front of the fleet scoring a 2-1 to put the regatta away.  Mischief pulled the other bullet for the day and won the tie-breaker for second over Minnesota Fast which was led by UK's Bill Menninger for the weekend.  Close behind in fourth with a great 3-2 for Sunday was Outlier and Absolute rounded out the trophies.

Especially on Sunday, the RC did a great job adjusting the line and the courses to the changing conditions and we also thank them for responding to our requests for over-earlies by radio and leeward gates.  With some of those crowded leeward marks, the gates were a big help!

For results, go to www.nhyc.org

San Diego National Offshore One Design (NOOD): 

We again had more sailors on the water on a Schock 35 than any other class at the event and twice as many boats as the J-120, J-105 or 1D35's.  Two new boats made their debut:  Ken Manzoni of Southwestern YC has chartered Shillelagh for the season and Lipton Cup and Fred Kirschner brings his Katmandu for class racing for the first time.  Katmandu you may remember by its former names Wild Thing and Buttercup...or as Steve Grillon used to call it, the Wonder Boat.  Great to see all the new blood in the class! 

Congratulations goes to Chayah as the class winner.  One fun thing about this event was that lots of new names made it onto the leader board -- Kathmandu (2d), Whiplash (tie 3d) and Super Gnat (5th) all finished in the money! 

Day one of the regatta saw mostly 8-11 knot winds ranging from about 260-290 on our course which was so close to the entrance to San Diego Bay that Point Loma was very much affecting the breeze.  There was big excitement at the first weather mark when three of the leaders misjudged the strong flood tide and found themselves stacked up on the mark.  Chayah led around in first with Whiplash, Whistler and Wings in pursuit.  On Piranha, we saw this, tacked away for several boatlengths, came back and still hit the mark in the current.  Need more SF experience!  Anyway, lots of boats did circles to exonerate.  Positions held except that we decided to push to the right to get up current approaching the mark and passed four boats from behind as they cam in from the left sailing directly into the maximum part of the current.  Chayah rounded inside of us, but coming out of the mark, we aggressively swung to their inside and jibed because we could now lay the mark in the building breeze and held them off to win. 

Race two saw Wings at max speed on the favored committee end of the line just flat take off.  They were never challenged and got what turned out to be the last gun of the day even though three races were scheduled.  When race #3 was abandoned, the wind was building and now getting near a #3 and it was warm and sunny.   Frankly, race conditions were awesome, but we went to the dock. 

On Sunday, the east coast mentality had our race starting at 11:30 again in a foggy unsettled wind that was waiting for the thermal to develop.  This race saw from 1-8 knots of wind and more than 90 degrees of shifts.  As Sailing World reports it "Drama in the Schock 35 class came on at series' end for this 12-boat division. Three skippers--David Voss (Marina del Rey), Dennis and Sharon Case (San Diego), and Peter Johnstone (Corona del Mar)--were in a three-way tie for the lead as the fleet entered the last race. None of those three skippers, however, took the class lead. Class winner Oscar Karinsky (Long Beach) and the crew on CHAYAH took a third in the final race for a two-point edge over Fred Kirschner's KATHMANDU."  For an hour the class sat and waited for the last race to determine the regatta winner -- the "R" flag was up signaling that there would be another race -- but the RC decided that it was now too difficult to get a race started because they were seeing 30 degree shifts.  Again we went home while the sun cleared and the wind was building with the race abandoned at 1:30 in the afternoon!  On other courses, the RC put up the postpone flag and ended up getting the race off, but we went home as the fleet loudly booed the Race Committee on the water.

Three races in two days and we were all standing at the yacht club at 2:30 p.m.  To add insult to injury NOOD organizers refused to honor wrist bands for drinks because it would be "unfair" to the boats still out on the race course racing -- even though we paid for the bands and everyone was going to leave and go home if there was no party then - which they did.  I am sorry to have to say this, but unfortunately, the event will be remembered by most for some shockingly awful race management decisions.  Our experiment with adding NOOD to our Championship Calendar was a failure.  Frankly, it looks like Yachting Cup will be the event on the Championship Calendar in 2001.

3d Annual W. D. Schock Memorial Starts Off Season

Cloudy skies and wet boats greeted the Schock 35 fleet as it gathered for the W.D. Schock Memorial at Newport Harbor Yacht Club.  First interesting news of the weekend was speculation on whether Ripple was really here, since it had been spotted still parked in its slip in Marina del Rey at 5pm the day before!  An overnight delivery on miserable rainy night got the boat there in time - and it was a good thing as Ripple came out on fire in the first two races.

Race 1 saw Piranha nail the start at the committee end and let Outlier duck to the right straight into a huge 60 degree righty.  The fleet looked up and Outlier was flat gone!  BY the time a few other got into the righty, they soon found it went so far the they ended up hugely overstanding.  This group included Power Play, Piranha, Minnesota Fast, Absolute and Whiplash.  Meanwhile, thinking they were hung out to dry, three boats that clearly prayed to the right god were lifted out of the middle all the way to the weather mark.  This group included Ripple, Wings and Chayah who all fought hard on the downwind leg as the wind dropped from 12 to 5 and backed into the SSE again.  Few positions changed on the downwind leg though as Outlier claimed the first gun of the season.

Race 2 was big left end favored and Mischief nailed the start, hit the left corner and was gone with a gap to the next boats rounding, Ripple and Piranha.   Approaching the mark, Super Gnat got squished out of the layline sandwich between Ripple and Piranha and then Ripple rolled over Piranha as they rounded overlapped. Ripple and WIngs extended to the beachside corner and rounded second and third at leeward mark.  Wings then proceeded to pass Ripple out of the mark as both went left while Mischief and Piranha went right.  The left was good and they gained a few lengths, but although Mischief crossed Wings by at least two boatlengths within six of the line, they failed to see that it was now hugely committee boat favored and Wings nosed out Mischief for the bullet with Ripple third and Piranha fourth before a gap to the bulk of the fleet which had been discovering why the class asks all RC's for leeward gates.  Lots of screaming and zigzagging was heard and seen as everyone in the pack rounded together.

In Race 3, still in heavy #1 conditions, Piranha used a start on the favored committee end and a bit more wind on the right to lead at the weather mark and extend away by jibe setting and laying the leeward mark.  Although White Fang was second at the leeward mark, Mischief did a quick tack onto starboard out of the leeward mark and drag raced to the favored leeward end to take second by a nose.  Again, without a gate, there was a mess at the leeward mark and the big beneficiary was Chayah which came in about eighth to the mark after a big overstand downwind, but popped out of the confusion in fourth.  I am told that the boat to watch on this rounding (they wouldn't let me look) was Twister, with Ty Hokanson threading his way through right of way boats into the mark.

Unfortunately, that was it as Sunday racing was cancelled with wind gusting to 29 and rain at 10am.  We all drove home into a big clearing sunny sky as the winds abated some.  In fact, at noon as the races should have started, the wind was between 15-20 knots and at 1pm 12-18 true!  Internet weather showed that the wind observed when the racing was cancelled at 10 am was a very localized cell of wind that passed through with the cloud line.  It would have been a nice day of racing. Oh well.

Wings took home the trophy and the lead in the season standings with Chayah, Ripple and White Fang leading the Corinthian Fleet for the start of the year.  Next stop is San Diego for the NOOD Regatta in two weeks.  See you there.

I'm enthusiastic about taking over the helm of the Schock 35 Class Association again (I was President in 1992). The salary and perks are really outstanding. I'm motivated again to do what I can for the Class because I really believe that we are doing something good here. The boat itself is wonderful, with its great performance in both light and heavy air. (And, you can have Thanksgiving dinner onboard, as we did this year.) The one-design racing is at a level near the top of just about any keelboat class you can name. And I think our participation rules, while sometimes misunderstood, are generally on the right track for good balance between keeping our racing from being dominated by various professionals vs. keeping the talent-level up so that our racing is interesting. We have strong participation in several harbors, and there are used boats available for potential newcomers. The prices are very workable, and with Tom Schock's offer last year to build new boats for around $70k, we have the potential to attract new participants into new hulls. We have a great thing going here, I think, and my goal this year is to try to build on what others before me have done in this direction.

We should each stop Dave Voss on the dock the next time we see him and congratulate him on doing such a fine job as the 1999 President. Class attendance and enthusiasm were waning in 1998, and Dave did a great deal to rekindle the spirit during his realm. Participation was up (average attendance at Hi-Points increased from 16 to 19 boats per regatta, on average, from 1998 to 1999), and he spearheaded a number of initiatives that will pay off well in the future. The only negative I can think of is that I have to follow such a fine act.

As with Dave, I think the single most important thing we must do this year is increase participation. As you are well aware, there is strong competition from several similar classes (e.g., the J-120 and J-105, the OD-35, and others), and these classes have made some gains recently. We need to promote the features in our Class that are not present in the other classes, such as the cost of the boat, the number of fleets and boats racing in major regattas, and the class organization. I am not sure about the best ways to do this, but we have a good message to deliver, and it shouldn't be too hard to do it.

You will notice a number of important changes this year. First, we will not be sending a traditional, paper, newsletter any longer. Rather we will step into the 21^st Century and conduct our business and deliver our news by electronic means. We now have two websites to promote our class and to share messages (more about these follows here). Our Board has approved an exciting schedule for 2000, including the San Diego N.O.O.D. Regatta, as well as a short distance race (Santa Barbara to King Harbor Race), to make things more interesting and varied. Our Owner's Party will be back this year by popular demand. And maybe this year will be one for a boat berthed north of Long Beach to win the Nationals (well, we'll see).

I'm looking forward to the sailing season. See you out there.