“Glass-out” for Santa Barbara to King Harbor Race!

(Santa Barbara,    CA)- The end of July in Southern California offshore circles marks the traditional start for the 90.0nm sprint down the SoCal coastline from Santa Barbara to King’s Harbor on Point Vicente/ Palos Verdes off Los Angeles. The race is hosted by Santa Barbara Yacht Club and Kings Harbor Yacht Club. This particular year was yet another astonishing example of how climate change is affecting our environment. While wildfires are burning all over Canada and California, the hot dry air sweeping inland is also affecting offshore winds. 

As a result, winds died overnight and longer into the morning than anticipated. So, boats that projected 10-12 hours actually took 18-20 hours! Over 30 of the 85 entered boats retired due to the lack of wind. Here is how it all went down in the various divisions. 

ULDB B Division
The J/125 JAVELIN sailed by Dan Murphy beat the J/125 ARGO 4, sailed by the duo of Kenny Kieding & John Vincent, by 2 minutes to win the class. JAVELIN also placed 5th in ORR and Overall.

ULDB C Division
This fleet was the domain of the J/111s. Second was Doug & Jack Jorgensen’s PICOSA, followed by John Staff’s black OBSIDIAN in 3rd, Brian Ganz’s ZOOM in 4th, and Derek Heeb’s GURLI in 6th place. So, the simple math follows- 90.0nm and 23.9 hours of sailing = 3.77 kts average! Just rippin’ up that race track, hahaha. The J/125s were only 2 hours faster on elapsed time, just say’in.  

PHRF A Division
In the eight-boat fleet, it was Mark Stratton’s J/122 CHEEKY that took the bronze medal. 

PHRF B Division
In the nine-boat fleet, it was David Gorney’s J/105 NO COMPROMISE that took home the silver medal, while Jack Mayer’s J/109 ZEPHYR missed “the chocolates” by a mere 3 minutes corrected time to settle for 4th place!

PHRF C Division
The nine-boat group saw Tom Bollay’s J/105 ARMIDA take the silver, while David Bew’s J/100 KANANI took 4th and Robert Kraak’s J/105 SOPHIA finished 5th. j

PHRF D Division
The ten-boat class saw Dave Newland’s J/92 DREAMLINE take 2nd and their sistership DOUBLE DOWN sailed by Brian Kerr took 5th place. 

ORC Division
Several boats that had ORC certificates were scored as a fleet overall. J/Teams faired quite well under the ORC handicap calculations, perhaps a bit more fair than the SoCal PHRF numbers!  

Five J/crews finished in the top 10 in ORC Overall. Seconds went to the J/92 DREAMLINE, third to J/92 DOUBLE DOWN, fifth to J/125 JAVELIN, eighth to J/111 OBSIDIAN, and tenth to the J/122 CHEEKY. That is truly an interesting distribution of a variety of designs!  Sailing photo credits- Lisa Bronitt Photography   For more Santa Barbara to Kings Harbor Race sailing information