Sort of.

"It was pretty painful, but I was happy that it blew," the Huntington Beach sailor said after posting two first places and two seconds to build a runaway 18-point lead in the 23-boat fleet after seven of nine races. "I knew I'd have an edge on the guys I had to beat because they'd have trouble matching my upwind speed."

In a southwesterly breeze building from 12 to 18 knots that churned up seas of 4 to 5 feet, Taugher, a longtime member of the host Alamitos Bay Yacht Club, was near-invincible as Thomas Barrows, the 17-year-old opening day leader, slipped to seventh place in the heavy conditions and Taugher's nearest threat, Reed Johnson of Toms River, N.J., won Saturday's first race but did well to remain in second place after capsizing twice later. Johnson flipped once when his tiller broke and again when his lifejacket snagged on his boom. He still had no finish worse than eighth---a good showing for a guy who normally sails back home on New Jersey's Barnagatt Bay, where he said "there are no swells and not as much chop."

The regatta winds up Sunday with the last two races scheduled for the third venue in three days, this time near the Seal Beach Pier instead of 1 1/2 miles offshore. How that will play out remains to be seen, but Taugher, a 33-year-old veteran, will be tough to overtake. At 5-10 and 178 pounds, he isn't the biggest competitor, but he makes up for his modest size by using a "really loose hiking strap and trying to get as far outside the boat as I can."

"I'll try to sail smart and not take any risks," he said---but that isn't necessarily the way to race a Laser successfully, especially in conditions like Saturday's. The top finishers were those best able to handle their 14-foot boats like so many surfers, sailing S-patterns downwind to stay on the crests, then swinging back the other way to find another big wave.

Rival Adam Deermount of Costa Mesa said, "When the waves are that big you can't even stay stable, but you have to push hard. The top guys are on the verge of flipping all the time. The fastest you ever go is right before you flip."

Taugher said he races a Laser only once or twice a year, "but I've been in the class long enough since I was 17 that I still have the feel." And the feeling after Saturday that he was as close to winning a national championship as he has ever been.

Thomas Barrows, who will turn 18 in November, is continuing his successful 2005 Championship season having won U.S. Youth Championship earlier this summer and a second in the U.S. Junior Singlehanded Championship just last weekend. Here, against rivals ranging to age 50, little seemed to change. He won the first two races and placed sixth in the third to lead Kevin Taugher of nearby Huntington Beach (3-4-2) by one point with six races remaining through Sunday.

"I like sailing against older guys," Barrows said with all due respect. "It's different [than sailing against other teenagers] because they're bigger and it's more of a challenge going upwind against them in a breeze."

There was a breeze Friday, the classic Long Beach southwesterly sea breeze building from 9 or 10 knots at the first noon start through Barrows' two wins until the velocity reached 15---advantage to big old guys and other beefy rivals in keeping their tender little 14-foot boats flat and fast, disadvantage to the 160-pound Barrows.

"It got a little too windy for me in the last race," Barrows said.

Vann Wilson, 49, of Long Beach, who at Barrows' age had may not have heard of a Laser, which was introduced in 1971  is tied for fourth with Peter Phelan of Santa Cruz, Calif., behind Taugher and Reed Johnson of Toms River, N.J.---and feeling lucky to be there. Johnson led Taugher most of the way before Wilson worked his way past both of them near the end of a hard, choppy upwind slog on the last eight-tenths of a mile leg.

"Kevin and Reed were corralling each other and let me slip in there," Wilson said. "[Call it] one for the old guys. That was a thrill. I can go home now." 

Not likely. Youth may have its day, but not necessarily if the wind keeps blowing like it did Friday. Saturday the challenge gets tougher when the race course moves outside the breakwater into open ocean where the swells bring another dimension into the equation.

 "I'm looking forward to it," Barrows said. "I hear there are bigger waves out there. That'll be good going downwind, and maybe that will help me."

Wilson said, "The kid is an excellent downwind sailor, and so is Reed. The downwind sailors are going to do well."

The one female competing---Anne Bowen, 22, of Charleston, S.C.---is only 140 pounds and she expected to struggle in double-digit breeze, which she did with finishes of 21, 23 and 22.  "As long as it's not too breezy I'm OK," she said. "Otherwise, I'm just glad to be here."