Ullman Sails LB: Day Two • Long Beach Post Sports

Reports From Rich Roberts

Campaigning for change won the day at Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week Saturday when two new names stole the spotlight in the marquee classes of the West Coast’s largest keelboat regatta,

Jeff Janov of California YC and Ed Feo, a member of both of the hosting Long Beach and Alamitos Bay Yacht Clubs, will lead the Farr 40 and Fast 40 fleets, respectively, into the last two races Sunday after dominating Saturday’s three races.

Tricky conditions prevailed. The moderate, shifting breeze from the south stirred few whitecaps, but the racing remained competitive.

Janov’s two firsts and three seconds in five races has left everyone except David Voss’s notorious Piranha out of the running. While it should be noted that Janov, who has been sailing a Farr 40 only two years, has the regatta title sponsor, Dave Ullman himself, calling tactics …honest, it’s all on the up and up. The competition isn’t cutting any slack.

Asked how he burst into a six-point lead with a first and two seconds in a notoriously tough one-design ocean racing fleet, Janov hesitated.

“I wish I could tell you,” he explained, except to note that Ullman sits on one side on the rail and local veteran Randy Smith sits on the other, working the main sheet.

“Randy is always telling me what to do,” Janov said, “and Dave puts me in the right place. I just try to pay attention.”

The high level of competition—especially Piranha, victorious one-design Boat of the Week here last year—drew Janov to the class after several years of sailing a J/105. But Piranha slipped to second place with its two worst races of the weekend—a third and a seventh—to put its reign in peril.

Dark Star now has a six-point lead, plus a tiebreaker advantage with three seconds to Piranha’s one, while everybody else is just racing for a podium finish.

“But we know it’s not over yet,” Janov said. “That’s the reason we’re here. Piranha is the benchmark to the fleet, and it’s the fleet to be in for now.”

Feo also takes nothing for granted. The two fastest boats on the water this weekend are both foreign entries: Australian Alan Brierty’s Limit, a two-year old Reichel/Pugh 63, and Lorenzo Behro’s Peligroso, a Kernan 70 previously owned the late Mike Campbell of Long Beach YC.

Limit is racing with a PHRF handicap of minus-138 (seconds per mile) while Peligroso is -99. Feo’s Locomotion, an Andrews 45, is rated -21.

“We’re in a different time zone,” Feo said.

Literally. Brierty’s home is in Perth. He is retired from the mining business in Western Australia. After winning the Rolex Regatta in Sydney Harborand placing fifth in the annual Sydney-Hobart race, he shipped his boat and brought his crew to what he calls “a different part of the world” for some different sailing experiences. From here he plans to move on to San Francisco to race in the biennial Pacific Cup to Hawaii as the first leg the trip home.

So while Locomotion has finished first in every race with Peligroso next, Feo said he is leaving them to fight the handicap battle. “It’s better just to stay away from those big boats, or sooner or later the lights would go out. I have no idea what they’re doing.”

Brierty, by the way, has little appreciation for this side of the world’s PHRF handicapping system. He’s ninth of 11 boats in Fast 50, but shares first place in a separately scored IRC class with Flash, a TP52.

As for his boat’s name … “When it was being built my wife said, ‘So if you’re building a $5 million boat, I’d say that’s the (bleeping) limit!’ I said, ‘That’s what we’ll name it.’ “

The last day of racing for 147 boats in 20 classes will start at noon Sunday on three courses—one inside and two outside the harbor breakwater.

It’s also the third and last stop on the Southern California Ullman Sails Inshore Championship Series, following the Ahmanson Cup at Newport Beach and Cal Race Week at Marina del Rey. .

Ullman Sails is the title sponsor. The founder and president, Dave Ullman, will offer his usual speed talk for competitors at Long Beach YC Friday at 10 a.m., then jump onto Jeff Janov’s Farr 40, Dark Star, which is one of the contenders in that 11-boat class of heavyweights.

Other sponsors and supporters are DISC Sports and Spine Center, Ayres Hotel Seal Beach, Gladstone‘s Restaurant, the Long Beach Parks, Recreation and Marine Bureau,Long Beach the Aquatic Capital of America, Macson Printing and Lithography, Mount Gay Rum and West Marine.

Class leaders

After 5 of 7 races

FAST 50 (11 boats)—Locomotion, Ed Feo, Long Beach/Alamitos Bay YCs, 6-6 (scoring penalty)-2-2-2, 18 points.

FAST 40 (11)—Derivative, Mark Surber, Coronado YC, 2-1-2-1-1. 7.

FARR 40 (11)—Dark Star, Jeff Janov, California YC, 1-2-2-1-2, 8.

TP52 (3)—Rebel Yell, David O. Team, Newport Harbor YC, 2-1-1-3-1, 8.

IRC (5)—Limit, Alan Brierty, Cruising YC of Australia, 2.-5-1-2-1, 11

PHRF 3 (5)—Rival, Dick Velthoen, Ventura YC, 1-1-1-1-1, 5.

FARR 30 (5)—Huckleberry, Jeff Murrell, King Harbor YC, 1-5-1-1-2, 10.

FLYING TIGER 10 (7)—Ruckus, Eric Schlagater, Anacapa YC, 2-1-1-3-1, 8.

J/120 (10)—Jim, John Snook, Long Beach YC, 2-1-1, 15.

CATALINA 37 (7)—Team LBYC, Dave Hood, Long Beach YC, 1-4-1-1-3, 10.