Reports From Rich Roberts

No time to trim and tune your boat for Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week June 25-27? 

 

No problem. Seven Catalina 37s have been chartered and three remain available to race in the West Coast’s largest keelboat regatta, co-produced by the Long Beach and Alamitos Bay Yacht Clubs. All you or your club needs to sail one of the same boats that America‘s Cup and Olympic champions have raced in the Congressional Cup for 20 years is a half-dozen friends and the overall $1,080 entry/charter fee. 

 

That also qualifies for two of the championships at stake within the event. A Catalina 37 is one of the three classes of boats a club must enter to compete for the Yacht Club Challenge, and the C/37 winner collects the class national championship as well. 

 

Sign up here  

 

No, you can’t hire Gavin Brady or any other Con Cup winner to sail it for you, but hey, it’s an amateur’s dream. Chuck Clay and his crew fromAlamitos Bay YC have proved that while winning the class the last two years.

 

Clay, whose personal boat is a relatively humble Cal 20, also has driven ocean racers with steering wheels instead of tillers, such as Locomotion and OEX, but a C/37 presents a different challenge.

 

“It’s a great one-design boat,” Clay said. “It’s a little heavy and doesn’t accelerate very well, and it doesn’t steer very well at low speed.” 

 

But that’s how Catalina Yachts created them—for one-on-one close-quarters match racing—and within their characteristics they remain completely equal. 

 

“It makes for a very level playing field,” Clay said. “Crew work is very important. You pay for any mistakes.”

 

Boats may sail with up to 10 crew. Clay will have Jay Golison as his tactician again, and others signed up so far are Pat McCormick, Eddie Ureno, Scott Atwood, Rob Rice and Clay’s brother Rob.  

 

The inshore regatta is open to keelboats with Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) ratings of 222 or less. One-designs may race boat for boat as fleets with a minimum of six entries.

 

At this posting, there were 111 entries in 16 classes, approaching last year’s turnout of 132 boats and including J/105s, 109s, 120s, 24s, 29s and 80s; Farr 40s and 30s, Beneteau 36.7s, Flying Tiger 10s, Open 5.70s, Schock 35s, Viper 640s and an assortment of PHRFs racing buoy and random leg courses separately.

 

All will enjoy free mooring or docking, courtesy of the City of Long Beach Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine; nightly parties with complimentary hors d’ouevres and free water taxi transportation between the sponsoring clubs.  

 

The regatta is the climactic event of the Ullman Sails Inshore Championship Series, following the Ahmanson Cup at Newport Beach and Cal Race Week at Marina del Rey.