Hosted by Balboa Yacht Club
Sunday October 10, 2010
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Ullman B Lido 14 Clinic & Regatta Sunday October 10, 2010 Balboa Yacht Club |
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Sailing in the most trying conditions witnessed in recent memory, a hearty group of 5 B teams came to Balboa Yacht Club to learn more about the fine art of sailboat racing and to compete for the famous Ullman B Perpetual Trophy at the Ullman B Lido 14 Clinic & Regatta hosted by Balboa Yacht Club. To many boaters, the clear skies, temperatures in the eighties were perfect ingredients for a day on the water. For Lido 14 sailors, the scant winds (peaking at 5 knots) and an fast outgoing tide made racing extremely difficult on the waters of Newport Harbor. The start of the first race is a good example. As you can see from the first few photos presented below, the sailors were pretty well congregated near the starting line. Soon after the start signal, the fleet inexplicably lost all headway and were unceremoniously flushed downstream (and downwind) to the leeward mark! It took over 6 minutes for the first boat to cross the start line. The race was abandoned due to the expiration of a time limit. And if that wasn't enough of a challenge, the winds decided to shift 60 degrees, requiring locating the race course across the very busy navigation channel in the harbor. So add shifty winds and power boat traffic to the list of challenges. The race committee, seeing a no win(d) situation drastically shortened the course to ensure that the minimum of 2 races needed to complete the series would, in fact, be completed. And the winds behaved just long enough to get them in; both being won by the husband and wife team of Jock & Lili McGraw. A third race was completed with Jock & Lili winning again then the wind started shifting and dying again so the racing was postponed back to the club, at which time it was agreed that was enough! So the group cleaned up and put away their boats and retired to the bar for cold refreshments and the awards. Regatta Chair John Papadopoulos Regatta PRO: John Papadopoulos Mark Set: Chris Killian & Larry Hoskinson Photography: Larry Hoskinson
Click Here to download the Notice of Race
About the Ullman B Regatta The Lido 14, when introduced in 1958, was virtually an instant success on the race course, offering exciting racing for advanced racers while also a very friendly boat for novice and intermediate racers to try out sailing and develop their racing skills. Of course, mixing advanced and novice sailors within the same race made for crowded and perhaps chaotic conditions - thus the offering of two levels of racing - "A" (advanced) and "B" (novice and intermediate). In the early days of the Class, racers had to win a B level event before they were entitled to race in the A division. With many B division participants and relatively few opportunities to advance, the B division became an entity unto itself however they were invariably in the shadows of the A division - never garnering the attention they deserved. Dave Ullman recognized the need to highlight the B sailors and created the Ullman "B" event to do just that. To paraphrase Dave, the Ullman B was meant to be a "B" championships of sorts. Today the phenomenon that encouraged Dave Ullman to create and support the B sailor is largely changed. Though the A/B system remains, the rules of how one transitions between A and B have changed drastically (basically, anyone can sail as an A or as a B until they win a B event...and then they have to sail at the A level for a minimum of 13 months). As the rules and popularity of Lido 14 racing changed, so did the Ullman B. Today, the event supports the B sailor by focusing on education and coaching to bring their skills up and to introduce them to racing at the same time. To that end, the event consists of both a clinic and a regatta where novice and intermediate sailors can very quickly learn many of the fundamentals of small boat racing. The event is roughly broken into two segments: a morning session with lectures and Q&A on tactics, strategies, and racing rules and other topics of interest to aspiring racers. The afternoon is dedicated to a series of races for the Ullman B Perpetual Trophy. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact regatta chair John Papadopoulos via email (jakp@mindspring.com) or by telephone (949) 466-0888. Past winners of the Ullman B Perpetual Trophy
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