One Design Regatta

Written by Nik Vale (Open Sailing) Sunday, 16 August 2009 00:00

To fill the gap between the One Design Weekend and the Harris Series the One Design Regatta is the perfect one day event for a little one-design practice. Since this is the vacation season a few of the local owners had chosen to make the most of the warm water and had set sail for Catalina. This left four Open 5.70s to battle it out for afternoon in Marina del Rey.

The start wasn't until 1pm which meant the breeze was already good by the beginning of the first race. Racing around the MdR marks the courses were chosen to be short ensuring the racing was close. Staying at the front required good boat handling (something that became harder as the breeze came up and the crew started to get tired) and good navigation skills (a couple of boats got burned by sailing towards the wrong mark before realizing their mistake - costing them valuable boat lengths).

The fleet here in MdR continues to grow together and the closeness of the boats even after a 4 mile race is remarkable. Even the newer owners are getting their boats dialed in and keeping up with the veterans despite the fact that they've only had their boat for a few months. Sailing back to the harbor it wasn't clear who was the overall winner - it ended up being a 3 way tie for 1st! You can't get much closer than that!

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