ABYC dishes up another special regatta

Long Beach, CA (November 13, 2014) – The fourth, last and largest of Alamitos Bay Yacht Club’s popular holiday sailing competitions, the 67th Turkey Day Regatta, will fire up Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 22-23, with sailors spanning three generations in several small boat classes.

Cal 20 and Viper 640 keelboats will share Long Beach Harbor inside the breakwater with high-performance 29er skiffs, singlehanded Finns, Class A catamarans, Lasers and Laser Radials, while Lido 14s, Naples Sabots and Optimists race inside on Alamitos Bay.

Last year the event drew 217 sailors on 152 boats in 16 classes, most of whom hung around for the special dinner afterward. The turnout, supported by some 90 ABYC member volunteers, should be greater this year after suffering a bit in 2013 without the usual launching and hoisting facilities being available during reconstruction of the club’s basin.

One traditional feature makes this regatta unique: no trophies. Winners will receive stuffed turkeys ready to roast and pies ready to eat, which is fine with the many competitors who have already collected considerable hardware on the national and international levels.

Those would include the Laser and Radial sailors competing in the second round of the Ullman/Frost Series, and the young 29er fleet concluding its five-event Southern California Youth Yacht Racing Association (SCYYRA) Hamlin Series.

The latter group would include last year’s 29er winner, Max Brill of San Diego’s Mission Bay Yacht Club, who this past summer also won the Junior Sabot Nationals.

Earlier, Brill left a special mark sailing a Club 420 with his brother Ian in the 2013 Junior Olympics at the Newport Harbor YC which racing judge Paul Zupan called “the most remarkable display of sportsmanship I can ever recall.”

Zupan was on a committee boat when Brill approached to explain “how they had been penalized on the water under RRS 42 for the second time the day before, and that their score did not reflect that incident. After returning to the dock on that final day of racing, the jury researched the issue and, in fact, we had made a mistake in scoring that [second] penalty.

“After the race committee made the correction, I realized Max and Ian were comfortably in first place in the regatta at the time they came to us to report that scoring error. The correction put them in third place and out of contention for progression to the Chubb US Doublehanded Championship. Had they simply ignored the error made by the Jury, they would be representing Area J at the US Championships. But instead, they chose to make sure that they were scored properly, and that the proper winner of the regatta progressed to the national event.”

Event Website

Report by Event Media