Rose Bowl goes hungry with famine conditions

Long Beach, CA (January 4, 2014) – While winter racing in California might not be as notable as the frostbite circuit to the east, the season is well known for its weather. You are nearly guaranteed a feast or a famine. Today was a famine.

More than a hundred of the best college sailors in the country spent more time parked on flat water than racing on Day 1 of the 29th annual Rose Bowl Regatta Saturday, but they didn’t complain much.

Many had come to a sublime and sunny Southern California from the miserable weather conditions the rest of the country has been suffering.

Nevin Snow of Georgetown University in Washington D.C. noted, “Probably 70 per cent of us who are racing are from here, so if we’re already here we all might as well be racing in the Rose Bowl Regatta. This is my sixth time.”

He’s from San Diego. One year he won the High School Gold division with Cathedral Catholic, whose junior varsity team currently shares first place in the same division with Corona del Mar’s JV, while Snow’s Hoyas, currently ranked No. 1 nationally, lead the Collegiate division with six points to Roger Williams U.’s 10.

All racing is off Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier east of downtown in the Long Beach outer harbor. The event is hosted by the USC Sailing Team and organized by the US Sailing Center of Long Beach, which for the first time has everyone launching off the beach.

Loyola of Los Angeles leads the High School Silver division after only two races.

The colleges and High School Gold sailors, sailing an adjacent course and alternating crews after two races, managed to run three before what little wind there was checked out around 4 o’clock.

Earlier, all three fleets, scheduled  to start at 11 a.m. were kept on the beach until noon when a wisp or two teased their hopes but then left them parked until 2 o’clock. Then they had about two hours of restless sailing, squeezing all they could out of 2 to 4 knots of southwest zephyrs in their two-person 13-foot CFJ dinghies.

They’ll try again on Sunday, scheduled hopefully to start at 11, but they must finish before 3 o’clock to allow time for awards and packing boats and gear to go home.

The title honors the  traditional college football classic in nearby Pasadena, where  Stanford University, ranked fifth nationally, lost to Michigan State on New Year’s Day. The Cardinal sailing team—also ranked fifth nationally—sits in that position after Day 1.

College leaders
1. Georgetown, A-3, B-3—6 points.  
2. Roger Williams, A-3, B-7, 10.
3. U.S. Naval Academy, A-10, B-1, 11.
4. Charleston, A-6, B-9, 15.
5. Stanford, A-16, B-5, 21.
Complete college and high school results and other information

MEDIA CONTACT: Rich Roberts