Report & Photo By Rich Roberts
 

In the spirit of the holidays, the winners collected turkeys instead of trophies, and all who competed in Alamitos Bay Yacht Club’s annual two-day Turkey Day Regatta Sunday went away in the mood for a happy Thanksgiving.

 

That would include Barney Flam and son Steve, who despite the loss of their wife and mother Evelyn only eight days earlier won the 19-boat Cal 20 class. But they had to come from behind in the sixth and last race to pull it off.

 

Longtime local friend and rival Keith Ives seized overall first place when the Flams stumbled with a fifth place in the next-to-last race as Ives won Sunday’s first two races. That set up a serious fight in the final go-round, and nobody was about to hand it to anyone on sentiment.

 

As they started side by side at the committee boat, Ives bumped the Flams but immediately recognized his foul and did a penalty turn that in effect destroyed his chances of winning the race. 

 

Steve Flam said, “The best part of it was that nobody said a word. The worst part was that we still needed to put two boats between us. We beat the second boat by about a foot.” 

 

The Flams finished third, with Ives sixth, and won by two points.

 

“We were really fortunate,” Steve Flam said. “My goal was just not to fall apart completely.” 

 

The good vibes prevailed all weekend. With 120 races for 247 boats in 20 classes from San Diego to San Francisco, there were only two protests all weekend, and one of those was withdrawn and the other settled by arbitration.

 

The winners ranged in age from mid-teens to octogenarians and showed an encouraging approach to balance between males and females.

 

Winners of the larger classes included Evan Hoffman, 17, of Escondido and Nevin Snow of San Diego in the full-rig Lasers and Laser Radials, respectively; Sterling and Hans Henken in 29ers, Carolyn Smith, Newport Beach, in Sabot A class, with no finish worse than second while boys filled out the rest of the top 10. Bruce Golison and crew Becky Nygren won in Lido 14s.

 

Bruce Golison? The guy who ran the largest keelboat regatta on the West Coast for 20 years until opting to do some serious sailing of his own?  He had never even raced a commonplace Lido 14 dinghy while growing up in Long Beach.

 

“When you’re a kid you just want to go out on the ocean where the big racing is,” he said. “Then when you get as old as I am [53], the [inside] bay is better.”

 

Actually, he successfully campaigns an Etchells on the class’s pro-level circuit. He bought a used Lido 14 the day before the regatta and raced it for the first time.

 

“It’s a tactical boat that puts the importance on starting and tacking,” he said, “totally back to the basics.”

 

Snow said, “Today was a little different from [Saturday],” when he found success by playing the fluctuations of the light 6-to-7-knot breeze on opposite sides of the ocean course.  

 

Hoffman, who also does most of his sailing in San Diego‘s normally light winds but races often in events at Long Beach, said, “This is my favorite place to sail.”

 

It wasn’t windy this weekend, but Hoffman said, “I like to come up here on a windy summer day and just sail all day long.”

 

The most dominant performance was by Larry Spencer andTodd Downey‘s dark blue Olson 30, Blue Star, which won all six races with a five-person crew.

 

Class winners

(6 races; 1 discard)

 

Alpha course

 

29ER (17 boats)—Sterling and Hans Henken, Coronado YC, 1-2-(3)-1-2-1, 7.

 

LASER FULL (20)—Evan Hoffman, Mission Bay YC, 4-(11)-8-2-1-3, 14.  

 

LASER RADIAL (39)—Nevin Snow, San Diego YC, 3-1-1-1-(4)-2, 14.

 

FINN (5)—Eric Lidecis, Bahia Corinthian YC, 1-4-(7)-1-1-2, 9.

 

A-CAT (5)—Jay Glaser, ABYC, 1-1-(3)-1-2-1, 6.  

 

FORMULA 18 (4)—Pease Glaser/Damon LaCasella, ABYC, 1-1-(5/DNS)-1-2-2, 7.  

 

MOTH (3)—Richard Davies, ABYC, (2)-2-1-1-1-1, 6.   

 

Bravo course

 

CAL 20 (19)—Barney and Steve Flam, Alamitos Bay YC, 1-(6)-1-2-5-3, 12.  

 

MERCURY (14)—Mike and J.J. Burch, Cabrillo Beach YC, 3-3-3-1-2-(6), 12.    

 

CORONADO 15 (5)—Barrett and Randy Sprout, California YC, (7/DNC)-1-3-1-1-1, 7.

 

TEMPEST (2)—Matt Houlihan/Dominic Meo, ABYC, 1-1-1-1-1-(2), 5.  

 

OLSON 30 (8)—Larry Spencer/Todd Downey, Pacific Corinthian YC, (1)-1-1-1-1-1, 5.  

 

Bay course

 

NAPLES SABOT A (17)—Carolyn Smith, Newport Harbor YC, (2)-2-1-2-1-2, 8. 

 

SABOT B (16)—Cole Baker, Mission Bay YC, 3-3-6-2-3-(12), 17.  

 

SABOT C-1 (15)—Grace Reed, California YC, (7)-1-7-1-1-5, 15.

 

SABOT C-2 (14)—Grace Yakutis, Coronado YC, 1-(7)-3-1-1-1, 7.

 

SABOT C-3 (20)—Adam Elsharhway, ABYC, (4)2-3-1-4-2, 12.  

 

LIDO 14-A (15)—Bruce Golison/Becky Nygren, ABYC, 1-3-1-(6)-1-1, 7.  

 

LIDO 14-B (9)—Mike Antiel, ABYC, 1-2-(5)-4-1-1, 9.

 

Complete results, photos and other information