Summer conditions for San Diego NOOD

San Diego, CA (March 14, 2015) – Favorable conditions continued at the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta in San Diego, giving nearly 700 competitors a full day of racing, with winds peaking into the high teens.

Saturday’s races featured 12 one-design classes with the larger keelboats—J/105s, J/120s, and Beneteau 36.7s and 40.7s—raced on the ocean course off Point Loma. The regatta’s smaller sportboat and dinghy fleets continued their respective series on San Diego’s South Bay.

“We got two good races in today,” says Mark Allen, whose Ultimate 20 Junta leads its series. “Both races were pretty challenging, especially when the breeze went really light. The first one was a bit of a lottery, and we just barely ghosted across the finish line.”

Junta scored second-place finishes in both races, giving them a 7-point cushion going into Sunday’s final races. “The key was patience,” says Allen. “If you reacted to everything, you went backwards. For us it was about looking upwind at the other fleets, connecting the puffs, and staying in pressure.”

The eight-boat Beneteau First 36.7 started its two-day series with Ted Butterfield’s Adventure, of Coronado, Calif., assuming the early lead with 1-5-1 finishes. Butterfield naturally put the team’s success to its crew.

“The wind from inland and ocean breezes fought with each other, and everyone struggled with that a bit,” said Butterfield. “The team worked well together and did their jobs. There were a couple of a little mistakes, like the spinnaker not going all the way up initially on one run, but all-in-all it was a good day.”

Meanwhile on the ocean course, Gary Mozer’s J/105, Current Obsession, returned to defend its class win (which also earned them the regatta’s overall title in 2014). They were right back into the groove, winning the first two races and finishing third in the day’s final race.

“This was a strange forecast that had the breeze maxing out at 8 knots so we had our rig set up for the light stuff,” says Mozer. “The headstay was wrong so when the breeze came on we had to rally bone the rig, double-block the backstay, and find any way to open the leech.”

Mozer says despite the team not racing together since last year, their maneuvers were good and they got around the racecourse without incident. “Everyone’s back: same crew, and it was all good,” he says. “We came back to support the event and defend what could be our last year with the boat. We want to go to the Caribbean again.”

NOOD Premier Sponsor, North Sails, presented awards to its Rally Race winner, as well as the best performing local boat. A new feature the regatta series, the North Sails rally encourages local competitors to a participate in a low-key day of racing for one day only, with a long distance race within the Bay. Thomas Taylor’s Beneteau First 47.7 led the rally fleet to victory while Chick Pyle’s Beneteau 36.7 Kea got the nod as the best local-team performance.

The final day of the action is scheduled to begin on Sunday at approximately 11:30 a.m., dependent on wind and weather conditions. The overall winner of the San Diego NOOD will join Grant Dumas, of St. Petersburg, Fla., and the crew of the Tripp 38 Warrior, along with other victors, in the British Virgin Islands in the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta Championship hosted by Sunsail.

Event details – Complete results

Report by event media. Photos by Paul Todd/Outside Images.