Rose Bowl: The Granddaddy of Them All

Thirty college teams coast to coast and 62 Gold and Silver high schools all sailed the doublehanded Club Flying Junior off the beach in the 30th Rose Bowl (Jan. 3-4), hosted by the United States Sailing Center and Pacific Coast Sailing Foundation in Long Beach, CA.

While Georgetown University coasted to a comfortable defense of its College championship, Newport Harbor High School kept its foot on the gas to close Point Loma’s eight-year reign in the High School Gold class.

The Newport Harbor B team of Campbell D’Eliscu and Madeline Bubb matched the efforts of the A team’s Sean Segerblom and Briggs D’Eliscu (Campbell’s kid brother) in winning the first and last of their eight races over two days, and also notched two firsts and a second as NHHS swept the Gold A and B groups.

D’Eliscu and Bubb made the most of it with a first and second in the last three races, wrapped around an 11th. A bold last-second burst at the line launched their first place, but when they tried to match it the next time . . .

“We were over early,” D’Eliscu said.

But by the end of the day it didn’t matter. Bold moves often pay off.

“It was a big thing to win this at the start of the year,” D’Eliscu said, “especially among some amazing people.”

Those included A.J. Reiter, skipper of Georgetown’s B boat with Isabelle Luzuriaga as crew. Like many of the competitors, Reiter and Luzuriaga were Californians racing for Eastern schools.

Unlike most Easterners, “We’re very lucky to sail all year,” Reiter said.

The weekend conditions weren’t entirely easy as the teams urged limited knots of speed out of their boats in Saturday’s gentle breeze, and Sunday started worse with 2-4 knots from downtown Long Beach to the northwest before fading completely in early afternoon.

That was a good sign, because soon a steady 8 to 9 knots filled in from the locally reliable southwest to pick up the pace.

Georgetown thus remained a close second in the national college standings to Yale, which didn’t venture West this time, and added the trophy to the World University Championships it won in Italy last summer.

Top finishers
College: 1. Georgetown University, 52 points; 2. U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 89; 3. Fordham U., 98.
High school Gold: 1. Newport Harbor, 61; 2. Corona del Mar 105; 32. Point Loma, 107.
High school Silver: 1. Cathedral Catholic, 79; 2. Windward School, 95; 3. The Bishop’s School, 101.

Event details – College results – High School Gold results – High School Silver results

Report and photo by Rich Roberts.