Feb 1, 2019 @ 14:27:34 EST
The Gaucho Regatta once again didn't disappoint with its unpredictability. A forecast of breezy conditions and storms that had just passed by led most sailors to the conclusion that they would be hiking hard this weekend. But when Saturday morning came, the breeze was a docile 3-5 knots from a southeast direction with sunny skies holding well into the late morning. After a couple of races however, that condition quickly changed. Cruising down the coast was a strong westerly with large swell. And as race 1 and 2 finished up on a course with 5mph easterly breeze, less than 300 yards away was 15-20 from the west.
Naturally those sailors who were hoping to hike got their wish as races commenced in a challenging westerly with steep chop. After a big puff rolled through and capsized much of the silver fleet, racing was postponed for a period to clean up the course and get the silver fleet in who stayed on shore for the remainder of Saturday. The Gold fleet however appeared to be loving it and continued to race until 5pm getting 4 A and 4 B races off.
The Gaucho regatta concluded similarly to how it started with docile conditions getting challenging quickly. After an hour on the water postponement in 1-2 knots of southeasterly breeze, a small puff from the south west expanded and eventually quickly grew to a westerly breeze that silver fleet enjoyed quite a bit. The breeze quickly built during the silver 3a race leading to some capsizes in the fleet, but the race committee safety boats did a good job of coaching the sailors upright and getting them in quickly following race 4a for silver fleet.
Gold fleet watched eagerly with anticipation as the breeze built during that first race and by the time their sequence started, they were straight leg hiking. The breeze popped into the mid 20's in the puffs as the day went on and back down into the teens in the lulls, and the sailors did a great job handling the challenging conditions.
Silver fleet was held once again at the beach in the interest of safety but after Gold race 6b was finished, the race committee picked up the course and moved it to a more protected location under stearns wharf. Coupled with a diminishing breeze (but still in the teens), the silver b fleet had a very successful race 3 and 4 and officially were able to get a regatta on the books.
Congratulations to the top five from silver fleet: Palos Verdes, St. Ignatius, Miramonte, Mater Dei, Woodside.
Congratulations to the top five from gold fleet: Newport 1, Newport 2, Sage Hill, CDM 1, and Santa Barbara
And most of all thank you to all the volunteers for their hard work at the 2016 Gaucho Regatta!
The following chart shows the relative rank of the teams as of the race indicated. Note that the races are ordered by number, then division, which may not represent the order in which the races were actually sailed.
The first place team as of a given race will always be at the top of the chart. The spacing from one team to the next shows relative gains/losses made from one race to the next. You may hover over the data points to display the total score as of that race.
