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<\/p>\nThe final races of Long Beach Race Week saw crews reacting to wind conditions that lightened as the day progressed. Courses were marked by wave states that ranged from steep chop and wide swell at the start to flat glassy water later in the afternoon. Several class championships remained undecided until the final race.
\u201cWe started the day with about 11 to 12 knots out of the south,\u201d said Race Committee Officer Randy Beers. \u201cIt held until the middle of the day before it died off to about 6 knots and went hard left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though challenging for many, the day\u2019s evolving conditions created opportunities for boats and crew that knew how to sustain power at lower wind speeds, especially those looking to advance their standing on the final day of racing.<\/p>\n
Among those defining stories was J70 class victor Cake. Scott Deardorff and his crew fought off 13 challengers in the highly competitive fleet. The boat held second place for two days before shifting into an overall first with a bullet in the final and deciding race, a 73-minute drifter that spread the fleet and tested mental fortitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe communicated constantly,\u201d said Deardorff. \u201cYou know it was \u2018Eyes out, call chop, keep it moving, smooth maneuvers, don\u2019t rush it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
21st Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week.
Long Beach Race Week<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, we really never shut up,\u201d joked trimmer Tristan Richmond.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it was good that we didn\u2019t,\u201d added bow Emma Deardorff. \u201cWe needed to win that final race outright in order to win our class in the regatta.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other standout performances included PHRF A class champions, the Melges-32 The Baby Screams, helmed by Jeff Janov. In addition to class honors, The Baby Screams also won the Golison & Kent Family Trophy, which is awarded to the highest placing boat with the lowest average race score whose skipper sails with a minimum of three family members aboard including the skipper.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrant and Jordan are sailing in the Olympic Class regatta in a few weeks, so it was great to be able to do this together with them,\u201d he said of his two sons, who are on the scratch sheet for San Pedro OCR in July.<\/p>\n
Also aboard the Melges 32 were 3-time 49er World Champion and Dutch Olympic Team sailor Floris Van de Werken and Polish ILCA 6 sailor Wiktoria Go?ebiowska.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a pretty exceptional international crew,\u201d said Janov.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
21st Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week.
Long Beach Race Week<\/p>\n
From Friday\u2019s tactical tests to Saturday and Sunday\u2019s leaderboard shakeups, camaraderie and crew dynamics \u2013 not just speed \u2013 were deciding hallmarks of this year\u2019s champions, especially aboard boats that came from behind to win podium honors.<\/p>\n
Perhaps most inspiring of all was the performance of Midnight Express, led by skipper Pete Hambrick. After an advanced Parkinson\u2019s diagnosis, Hambrick bought a CF-27 near identical to one he raced in the 1970s and \u201980s with crewmates Walter Johnson, Phillip Infelise, and Jeff Silver. Now spread across the U.S., the crew returned in full to race with Hambrick in this year\u2019s Long Beach Race Week. Solidly in fifth place by the end of Saturday\u2019s racing but not out of the points, Hambrick and his crew decided to push.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe listened to Pete on tactics, and then we did two tacks \u2013 we tacked Pete and then we tacked the boat,\u201d Johnson smiled, describing the crew\u2019s unique maneuvering.<\/p>\n
The crew established repeatable evolutions and worked them methodically over the weekend, overtaking two faster boats on the final race day to cross the finish line in second on the Random Leg C course.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really love this,\u201d said Hambrick. \u201cWe spend time on the water together and it\u2019s really like spending time with family.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
21st Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week.
Long Beach Race Week<\/p>\n
For Race organizers Chuck Clay and John Busch, that sentiment has long been emblematic of Long Beach Race Week. From dockside debriefs to the nightly social events at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club and Long Beach Yacht Club and Sunday\u2019s awards ceremony, the weekend combined high-level competition with an esprit de corps that\u2019s made it a fixture on the West Coast sailing calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Long Beach racing community is why we do this\u201d said LBRW co-organizer and two-time Alamitos Bay Yacht Staff Commodore Chuck Clay. \u201cIt\u2019s what makes this weekend special.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us coming together for a weekend on the water, racing hard, and having the best time,\u201d added Long Beach Race Week Co-Chair John Busch. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hosted jointly by Alamitos Bay Yacht Club and Long Beach Yacht Club, Long Beach Race Week sees participation from a wide mix of one design and PHRF competitors, from veteran campaigners to first-time entrants eager to test themselves against the region\u2019s top sailors. It is the largest yacht race on the West Coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final races of Long Beach Race Week saw crews reacting to wind conditions that lightened as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[153437,131,133,132],"class_list":["post-381999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-lbrw","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}