On the Harbor: Sailing to Catalina during Long Point Race Week

2018 Long Point Race Week  "Stark Raving Mad"      photo courtesy of Joysailing.com

 By LEN BOSE

In the time it takes to brush a mosquito away from your ear, summer is nearly completed and yet I am still itching for more.

As you hear the buzzing approach, you try not to look at the calendar to notice that fall is quickly approaching. We still had one weekend in the month of August which means we were headed over to Catalina for the Long Point Race Week. That perfect one last weekend to give summer one last whack upside the head.

Horizon photo courtesy of Joysailing.com

Long Point Race Week brings in Southern California’s best racing boats and offers them a world-class sailing event. This year, we had the usual suspects entering the event with Hasso Plattner aboard his 68’ foot Reichel/Pugh CLAUDE, Roy Disney 70’ Andrews PYEWACKET and my favorite boat – Jim Maddens 60’ Swan STARK RAVING MAD.

Out of the 45 boats entered, 18 of the participants are from our harbor with Molly Lunch & Alan Andrews sailing DOUBLETIME to a 2nd place overall. Another fantastic result was Seth Hall aboard his J 124 MARISOL, finishing 3rd overall. Rounding out the top 10 was James Devling in 8th in CARBON FOOTPRINT, and our team aboard HORIZON finishing 9th.

Aboard HORIZON, we lean rather heavy into the fun meter inviting our regular crew members along with their spouses for a total of 15 people aboard. That’s close to doubling our normal amount of crew. With wine, ice and 150 cold beverages to help with the smiles over the three-day weekend, we were well provisioned, which makes for a rather heavy race boat. Fortunately, Carson Reynolds allowed us to bring our camping gear and some of the provisions aboard his escort boat “Row Boat.”

Crew of Horizon

One of the ways to win this event has always been who shows up with the biggest, baddest escort boat for the crews to sleep aboard and relax on after a hard day’s racing. But this year, there was a little twist added when more attention was given on who had the best floaty toys attached to the back of their boats. Late on Saturday afternoon, the crew from MEDICINE MAN started a parade by picking up a number of very large inflatable pink flamingos and other associate rafts and towing them around the anchorage.

With the Catalina backdrop, warm water, sunny days and sparkling nights, things just do not get much better than that. Yes, the sting of the ending of summer is approaching but the remembrance of the Long Point Race Week will last for a lifetime.

• • •

Back at home, the last week of August brings the end to BCYC Taco Tuesdays and the NHYC Twilights Series. This last Tuesday, we had a cool summer breeze on the harbor with about 12 knots of wind coming out of the West. For us here in our harbor, that’s close to calling it a windy night, and as I looked up the race course, one of our best Harbor 20 friends Debra and Peter Haynes’ rigging had failed and their mast fell into the water. This is bad and while everyone was looking at who or what would come to the assistance of the Hayneses, out of nowhere came a gorgeous dark blue Duffy 22’ Bay Island to assist them. From afar, my first thought is how can anyone from a Duffy help a Harbor 20 with their mast and sails in the water. Within a very short period of time, the Duffy captain had the H20 in tow and assisted them back to safety. I was astonished on how easy it was for this Duffy captain to make this monumental effort to help a harbor user.

Photos courtesy of ©ShellyCastellano/SCPIX

Later that evening, the Hayneses showed up at the after-race party where Debra told the story: “This very nice gentleman appeared out of nowhere and said he had a lot of experience in this situation and would like to help. Before I knew it, we were off the harbor and at a friend’s dock. When I thanked him and asked him his name he replied ‘Duffy.’ When I said yes, I know you have a nice Duffy, but what’s your name; whereby the skipper replied ‘Duffy’. I don’t think he heard me correctly,” Debra said.

I started to laugh a little because just after the incident, I noticed it was our Mayor Marshall “Duffy” Duffield. It does not get any better than that and I have never, in all my years, seen someone help another harbor user more. Good stuff makes you smile and feel good about things going on in our harbor.

Photos courtesy of ©ShellyCastellano/SCPIX

Speaking about feeling good about things, Rhonda Tolar continues to lead the way in making sailing fun in our harbor, with her continued promotion of Taco Tuesdays at BCYC. Just completing her 8th year and 128 weeks of gathering opportunity drawing prizes, she raises the energy level to where the participants gave her team of volunteers a standing ovation last Tuesday night. No one sells the sport of sailing better than Tolar in Newport Beach, and for that, we say well done and thank you.

Rhonda Tolar

Sea ya.