San Diego Yacht Club Hot Rum Series Opens with 24 J/Teams

ByStuart Johnstone

(San Diego, CA)- Starting on November 7th, the San Diego Yacht Club will host the first of three Hot Rum Series, a set of fun and family-friendly races with tradition dating back over 60 years. The Hot Rum races are open to all types of sailors, from expert to novice, racing on boats capable of completing the approximately 12-mile course in less than 4 hours.

The regatta is very popular with Southern California J/Boats sailors. The course starts and finishes in the beautiful San Diego Bay near Shelter Island, sails out the channel beyond Point Loma, around a series of offshore ocean buoys, then returns to the finish inside the harbor. Each race uses a pursuit start, with the slowest-rated boat starting at noon, followed by the rest of the fleet at pre-assigned intervals.

A regatta full of tradition, participants, friends, and family can enjoy some of Mount Gay Rum’s Hot Rum drinks and San Diego YC Hot Rum parties after each race, which were the foundation of the Hot Rum Series started by Herb Sinhoffer so many years ago.

This year’s dates are:

– November 7- Saturday
– November 21- Saturday
– December 5- Saturday

Twenty-four J/Teams are participating in this year’s Hot Rum series fleet of 114 boats (J/Boats are 21.0% of the fleet). Here’s a list of the notable teams participating below:

J/105s- 9 boats
Always the biggest class in the regatta. Top boats include Bennet Greenwald & Casey Schnoor’s PERSEVERANCE, Chuck Driscoll’s JUICED, and Mike Hatch’s J-ALMIGHTY.

J/120s- 5 boats
The perennial contenders and good friends in this fleet are John Laun’s CAPER and Chuck Nichols/ Kyle Clark’s CC RIDER.

J/145s- 2 boats
The two “big J’s” dueling for supremacy will be Rudy Hasl’s PALAEMON and Alec Oberschmidt’s STAGHOUND II.

J/122s- 2 boats
The two well-sailed veteran teams on the 122s have often been in the hunt, including Mark Stratton’s CHEEKY and Erostino Dagfish’s DOUBLE HELIX.

Other top teams include past overall winner Jim Madden’s J/100 STARK RAVING MAD. Joining him will be Mike Thompson’s new J/40 KATSUO, Ed Sanford’s J/111 CREATIVE, Gene Pitkin’s J/109 GERONIMO, Chuck Bowers’s J/29 RHUMB RUNNER, and Tom Reilly’s J/22 JEZEBEL.

For more San Diego YC Hot Rum Series sailing information
https://sailing.sdyc.org/racing/event/hot-rum-series-1-26/