On the weekend of February 9th, Kim Sultz, Erica Byerley, Lauren Dykman, and Jackie Wetzel traveled north to Stanford Sailing Center to sail 420’s in Bryson’s Women’s Regatta. They joined other teams of four from Santa Clara, Oregon, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and UC San Diego. Each team of four contributed one boat to A division, and another boat to B. UCSB’s A team consisted of skipper Lauren Dykman and crew Jackie Wetzel both of whom were freshman participating in their first college regatta. The B team consisted of two seniors, skipper Erica Byerley and crew Kim Sultz. For Erica, Bryson’s signified her first college regatta as a skipper. On Saturday morning the estuary shone more reflectively than the fiberglass hulls of Stanford’s rowing vessels: there was not a wisp of breeze. Luckily, the wind picked up to between 5 and 10 knots around 11:00am and the 420‘s were able to slowly but surely reach the racecourse. Bryson’s shared the venue with a North 3-4 FJ race, and race committee gave priority to starting North, since their scores were vital for their ongoing series. Unfortunately, by the time the FJs completed one rotation the wind died entirely. After waiting on the water for more than an hour, all boats skulled and rolled their way back to the docks.

The sailors returned on Sunday, itching to compete. Races were postponed until noon when the wind picked up. The UCSB sailors placed in the middle of the fleet in the first race as they became acquainted with the conditions, other sailors, and favored sides of the course. In the second race, Lauren and Jackie defended the favored side of the course and strategically tacked on lifts to walk away with a first place. The wind held more consistent than it had the day before, but shifted slowly to the left as the day progressed. By 2:30, the wind died to nothing as it had the day before, and the sailors skulled to the docks. The 420’s managed to complete four races for each division. The A team received a 6,1,3, and 5 and overall placed 3rd out of 12 boats. The B team received 8,9,8, and 9 and tied for 7th out of 12 boats. Santa Clara won the regatta by a landfall with a cumulative score of 16. Oregon followed with 43 points. UC Santa Barbara came in 3rd out of six teams with 49 points. First-time skipper Erica maintained strong, consistent mid-fleet scores, and the freshman team fought to the front of the fleet; so overall the UCSB women’s team had fun and returned home with pride.

UCSB sits alone atop South Standings…

With the full team back on the water after winter break, things started to fall into place.  Our Varsity B skipper, Cameron Walsh became busy with dental school applications and so the varsity line up got switched up a little bit.  After their promising performance at Rosebowl, Ginger Luckey and Grant Rickon grabbed the Varsity B spot that opened up, while Ian Stokes hung on to the Varsity A skipper spot and Katherine Sander (who was tied up with fall soccer) grabbed the Varsity A crew spot.

We had some veteran alumni help coaching from Nick Kaschak at the event which took place at Mission Bay Yacht Club and was hosted by UC-San Diego.  The weekend long event is broken into two days with Saturday counting at the South 1 regatta and Sunday counting as the South 2 regatta.  South 3 and 4 would be a month later at UC-Irvine and South 5 (a two day event) would be hosted at UC-Santa Barbara a month after that.  These five events count towards who is permitted to sail in the Pacific Coast Conference Championship and the top four at that event go on to the National Semi-Finals.

Not knowing how we would fair against the competition, it was positive to see that both our A and B teams were extremely consistent finishing 2nd in both of their divisions which gave the Gauchos 1st overall for South 1.   The wind was light and shifty both days.

On Sunday, Ian & Katherine finished 3rd in their division while Ginger and Grant remained remarkably consistent finishing 2nd in B’s which gave the team a 2nd place overall.  The other top teams consisted of Cal State Long Beach, UC-San Diego, and USC.  The Gauchos currently lead the South standings with a consistent 1-2 finish for the regattas.  South 1-2 Results are online at: http://scores.collegesailing.org/schools/UCSB/s13/.

Our second varsity team was led by Cobi Allen (’16) in A’s finishing 5th and 7th in South 1 and 2 respectively.  Luke Ryder (’16) rounded out the team in B’s finishing 9th and 10th in South 1 and 2 respectively.  This team finished 7th overall in both regattas.

Sailors that attended included freshmen Ian Stokes, Ginger Luckey, Grant Rickon, Cobi Allen, Luke Ryder, and Natalie Davidson; seniors Katherine Sander, Kim Sultz, Jessica Schem, Erica Byerley; and junior Preston Beye.

At one of the toughest events to take place on the west coast, the Gauchos fielded a team of entirely freshmen sailors.  The lone Junior joined the team this year and was called in after another sailor suffered a wrist injury and withdrew at the last minute.  The reps for UCSB were:

Varsity A – Ginger Luckey (’16) / Grant Rickon (’16)
Varsity B – Cobi Allen (’16) / Preston Beye (’14) & Adin Dobkin (’16)

Our typical A and B varsity skippers were unavailable due to the winter break still going on and spending time with their families.  Even fielding our next best skippers, they did well and it felt like there was some break through moments for these competitors.

The conditions were decent on Saturday actually behaving somewhat like a normal Long Beach day in the summer (rare at this time of year).  On Sunday, the wind was blisteringly cold and whipping from the West-northwest.

The A fleet tends to be extremely competitive at this regatta and we were pleased that Ginger was able to score mostly top half finishes and snag a top 10 finish in there.  Grant skippered a couple of races too and found out just how competitive the fleet was as he struggled off the line but gained back a huge portion of the fleet by the end of the race.  Cobi, skippering B’s, was fairly consistent finishing between 9th and 17th every race out of the 30 boats.

Congrats to our freshmen skippers and team.  We’re excited what the future holds for them.  Full 2013 Rose Bowl Scores.

Attention all Alumni, Family, and Friends of UCSB Sailing!  The December ’12 Edition of the “UCSB Gaucho Sailing News” is available online now.  We will be sending home hard copies in the coming days to Alumni, so check your mailboxes and click the link below to read what the team’s been up to!

• 12/12/12 – UCSB Gaucho Sailing Newsletter Dec 2012

  • New ramp, Freshmen Recruits, New Alumni Board, and more!

Considering a yearend donation?  How about making a tax deductible donation to UCSB Sailing?  If you’re interested, visit http://ucsbsailing.com/donate!

The 2012 Fall Dinghy Champs took place during the middle of a front that was blowing through with gusts into the high 20′s and low 30′s on Saturday out of the West-Northwest and temperatures in the 50′s.  The Varsity sailed out into the ocean Saturday morning while the JV stayed nestled under the Santa Barbara Pier for protection. As breeze levels grew, it became apparent that there were not enough resources to monitor the JV course that was plagued with capsizes, so those sailors were sent in. The Varsity sailors faced their share of struggles as large rollers and big puffs would knock down several boats at a time. The Race Committee opted to move the Varsity course under the protection of the pier which proved to be just as challenging a venue with less waves but even bigger wind shifts. The offshore breeze had been providing the fleet with 30 degree wind shifts fairly often but once under the pier the shifts became even larger seeing 40 degree plus wind shifts that would send the fleet into auto-tacks.  UCSB sailed somewhat inconsistently for the day which left them needing to make up some ground on Sunday. 

The windblown and weary race committee and racers were pleasantly surprised with a mellow but steadily building breeze on Sunday from the Southwest; a more typical direction in Santa Barbara. Once the racers were off shore, the races started flowing much easier than the previous day. Wind shifts were within a reasonable range and as the breeze built to around 8-12 knots, the race committee pushed harder to squeeze in as many races as possible on the shorter Sunday schedule. With most teams settled into who was sailing the day, all three fleets were freed up to ditch the rotation schedule and just sail hard. The RC managed to get six more sets in which brought the grand total to 42 races sailed and 14 sets for the three division varsity over the course of the weekend.

The Gauchos Varsity finished 5th overall which was good but lower than they had hoped.  It did reignite a committment to practice harder and more consistently in hopes of performing at the standards they felt they were capable of.  The final results were as follows:

Varsity A – Ian Stokes / Ginger Luckey / Grant Rickon (5th overall)
Varsity B – Cobi Allen / Kim Sultz (9th overall)
Varsity C (Laser) - Cameron Walsh (4th overall)

Gaucho JV1 finished 5th overall and JV2 finished 9th overall
JV1 A – Cody Schlub / Christie Forbes / Jessica Schem (5th overall)
JV1B – Luke Ryder / Preston Beye (4th overall)
JV2A – Max James / Natalie Davidson (7th overall)
JV2B – Haille Hogfeldt / Corinne Cooper / Dylan Friesen / Di Kang / Alex Levine / Charly Chambers

Complete Results at: http://www.ucsbsailing.com/regattas/2012-pccsc-fall-dinghy-champs/

2012 Stoney Burke Regatta
Location:  Treasure Island – San Francisco, CA
Dates:  10/13-10/14
After the huge loss of graduating seniors from last year, it was a question mark as to how the Gauchos would perform at this year’s Stoney Burke, the first true regatta of the fall season.  The Gaucho team that attended, which consisted of three seniors, a couple of sophomores, and nine freshmen, headed up to San Francisco to see if they could hang with the competition in the Pacific Coast Conference.  The Freshman and two Sophomores had performed very well at the Frosh-Soph Regatta  the weekend before winning the event overall, but once the Seniors and Juniors from the conference were thrown in the mix, it was uncertain what the outcome would be. 

Waking up early to a very light breeze Saturday morning, the team made some last minute adjustments in the lineup fielding these sailors:
Varsity A – Cameron Walsh (’13 – skipper) / Kimberly Sultz (‘13)
Varsity B – Ian Stokes (’16 – skipper) / Erica Byerley (‘13)

JV A – Ginger Luckey (’16 – skipper) / Luke Ryder (‘16) / Grant Rickon (‘16)
JV B – Cobi Allen (’16 – skipper) / Natalie Davidson (‘16) / Nino Helm (‘15)

The Varsity A team struggled a bit with the early light conditions on Saturday, but as the day wore on and the breeze picked up, they won two races in a row showing awesome promise and improvement.  A disqualification from one of those races dropped the team out of 2^nd place, but the expectations were uncertain in the first place so to be battling at the top of the fleet was a huge moment for the team.

The Varsity B team, led by freshman phenom, Ian Stokes, strung together several bullet races competing well and handily winning their division by 24 points.  This placed the UCSB Sailing team in a solid 3^rd place overall behind Hawaii and Washington.

The JV A team started slow scoring a 5^th and a 7^th in the first set, but they pulled it together in the second set to grab a 5^th and a 2^nd.  When the wind started to pick up, star crew from Point Loma, Grant Rickon traded in for Luke Ryder and Ginger and Grant pulled a 1^st, 1^st, 2^nd over the remainder of the weekend finishing just three points out of first in the JV A division. 

JV B fully dominated their division with nothing but bullets the first day.  They went on to finish with a 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th on the second day and handily won the event in JV B and overall for UCSB.

Overall, the Gauchos scored 12 bullets between the two teams, showing promise of a very quickly rebuilding team.  Ole! 

Thank you once again to Katherine Sander’s family and Natalie Davidson’s family for housing the team!

Complete scores are online at: http://scores.collegesailing.org/schools/UCSB/f12/