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The
last day of racing for the U.S. Sailing Offshore Championship brings the
final results but before we get into the outcome, let’s look at the events
of the day. The day started out warm and sunny, not unusual for southern
California. The greatest danger facing the competitors was the potential of
sunburn.
The wind never developed so the struggle was to do your best with winds that
never seemed to top 8 knots. In the clubhouse at the end of the day, race
chairman Don Warner said “At least the boats were moving”. Some sailors
probably felt they were not moving no much faster than the boats in the Long
Beach Boat show going on at the same time.
After a series of ups and downs through two days of racing, the defending
champions from the U.S. Naval Academy seemed to be doing reasonably well in
race one on day three rounding the weather mark in fifth but were in eighth
at the leeward mark rounding. When their spinnaker touched another boat they
were forced into a penalty situation but were also fouled by another boat
changing their fifth place to fourth.
In race 4, Bill Buckles crossed the finish line almost 2 minutes ahead of
Erik Wulff but was disqualified leaving Wulff with the honors and rounding
out Wulff’s count of four places in four races. Robert Hobbs was just a few
seconds behind Wulff but with a sizeable lead over Aaron Housten.
At the start of race 5, one point separated Hobbs and Wulff at 9 and 10
respectively. The same was true for John Buchan and Claudia Wainer at 15 and
16 points respectively. Race one saw a 30-degree wind shift from out of the
South to 150. With the wind normally clocking right, even the local guys
couldn’t figure the wind shifts. Claudia Wainer’s tactician, Randy Smith
said, “Apparently local knowledge was a disadvantage”. When asked if he
thought Hobbs was lucky, he simply said, “Hobbs and his team took advantage
of opportunities”.
Each team had to win the right to represent their Area in this championship
regatta. Three days of racing proved what Randy Smith said on day one that
the key would be consistency. Hobbs scored two wins, two seconds and a
fourth in five races. He and his team were clearly the most consistent.
Congratulations to the 2006 U.S. Sailing Champions, Robert Hobbs and his
team from Tampa Bay.
Sail Boat Skipper R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 Total
1 7 Area D Hobbs,Robert 4 1 2 2 1 10
2 8 Area C Wulff,Erik 2 4 3 1 5 15
3 6 Area H-E Buchan,John 1 6 1 7 2 17
4 10 Area J Wainer,Claudia 3 2 5 6 9 25
5 1 USNA Campbell,Joe 9 3 7 4 6 29
6 11 Area E Buckles,Bill 6 9 4 12 D 3 34
7 5 Area B Kuryla,Bruce 7 7 9 9 4 36
8 9 Area K Housten,Aaron 5 12 D 11 3 7 38
9 4 Area F Rhyne,Steve 12 D 8 6 8 8 42
10 2 Area H-W Spadaro,John 10 5 8 10 12 D 45
11 3 Area A Hudson,Warren 8 12 D 10 5 12.0 P 47
The U.S.
Offshore Championship is part of the National Championship program of US
SAILING, national governing body of the sport. This years event is hosted by
the Long Beach Yacht Club. For more information on the U.S. Offshore
Championship, please visit the event website at
http://www.ussailing.org/championships/adult/usoffshore/.
Information about the Long Beach Yacht Club and other racing events is
available at
http://lbyc.org. |
