(Mostly) fast pace for 2019 Coastal Cup

Seventeen teams competed in the 2019 Coastal Cup, the 204nm course from Monterey to Santa Barbara which is the second stage of the California Offshore Race Week. Starting on May 27, it was the fastest race in the recent 5 year history, with new elapsed time, ORR corrected, and ORRez corrected times established by three different boats.

In fact, the first 15 finishers all eclipsed the previous record from 2017. But for those that didn’t finish by about 11:00am on day two, the wind shut down and the last few boats struggled to reach the line despite the excellent racing over 90% of the course. Chris Kim’s J/105 Vuja Star was the final finisher with an elapsed time of 27:21:30.

Prior to 2015, the race was started in San Francisco and had finishes in Santa Barbara and Catalina over the years before changing the start to Monterey to fit into the CA Offshore Race Week.

Phillip Turner’s RP 66 Alive was the first to finish, setting the elapsed time record at 13h 48m 28s, besting the 2017 elapsed time of Santa Cruz 70 Catapult by nearly an hour. Turner’s team from Australia, which is in California to prepare for the 2019 Transpac Race, was fast but not fast enough to beat Ronning’s Catapult which took top honors in Class-A.

Zachery Anderson and the crew of J/125 Velvet Hammer continue their excellent race week by setting the ORR corrected time record for the Coastal Cup at 17h 25m 23s, well below the Catapult’s 2017 time by more than 5.5 hours. Velvet Hammer currently leads the CA Offshore Race Week standings in class and overall. They will line up in an 11 boat class for the SoCal 300 and try to continue their success down to San Diego starting May 30.

Karl Robrock has some history with the Coastal Cup, including a dismasting and Coast Guard rescue in 2017 on his Moore 24 Snafu (story here). Back to take on the Coastal Cup again in 2019, and Snafu sailed an incredible race to record the best correct time of any boat, using their ORR-ez handicap.

Snafu used their full sail inventory over the nearly 22 hours needed to complete the course. Rebecca Hinden’s Bombora also sailed an excellent race in the ORR-ez class posting a corrected time better than all others aside from Snafu.

The Santa Cruz 50/52 class welcomed back Wayne Zittel’s J World’s Hula Girl to the fleet after their breakdown in the Spinnaker Cup. Dave MacEwen’s SC52 Lucky Duck was nearly keeping pace with the Santa Cruz 70s for the first half of the course, and kept a tight inside line through the last leg to the finish to win their class by over an hour.

Class E matched the two Cal 40s head to head once again, along with Mike Little’s Olson 40 Dogma. Don Jesberg’s Viva and Rodney Pimentel’s Azure battled in tight quarters all the way down to Point Arguello, where Viva headed south and Azure broke towards the coast. When the wind died down after 1100pm on day two, both Cal 40s struggled to get to the finish line.

Viva finished with an elapsed time of 25:30:06, nearly 7 minutes ahead of Azure, and held on to a narrow 33 second correct time difference for the class win.

Next up is the In-Port Wednesday night racing hosted by Santa Barbara Yacht Club on May 29 before the SoCal 300 gets underway May 30 for the 38 teams entered to race from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

Event details – Entry list – Coastal Cup results – Tracker

The fifth edition of California Offshore Race Week once again connects three distances races into a full offshore race week series. The first stage is the Spinnaker Cup on May 25 (San Francisco to Monterey; 88nm) followed by the Coastal Cup on May 27 (Monterey to Santa Barbara; 204nm) and the SoCal 300 on May 30 (Santa Barbara to San Diego; 245nm).

New this year, the California Offshore Week includes a fourth component for the fastest boats – the CA 500 from San Francisco to San Diego on May 30. Originally conceived by Manouch Moshayedi who owns Rio100, the big monohulls couldn’t rally interest but three MOD70s will be using the course as preparation for the 2019 Transpac Race in July.

Source: Jared Wohlgemuth