Let’s start with the Cal Team Race. Please be advised that I was not there to witness the proceedings first hand, so some details might be stretched, twisted, or made up altogether. Sailing started right away as an awesome 8-10 knot breeze filled from the west and stuck around all day. The team, comprised of skippers Shannon Walker (junior), Drew Morton (junior), and Andrew Segal (freshman 4 lyfe), reported having some really good races, with Shannon and freshman crew Nora Brackbill starting particularly well. While there were other shining moments in their races, the team noted that consistency and a lack of practice as a team held them back a little this weekend. Overall, they came out with 5 wins and 8 losses, which was good for 4th place overall. In related news, Drew Morton hit his knee on the thwart possibly harder than anyone has ever hit their knee on a thwart before this weekend. Despite the injury, mental and physical toughness, some encouragement from his crew, and a lack of alternates kept him from having to sit out any races. The consistent breeze allowed for two and a half round robins to be completed, so Cal decided to end the regatta after just one day. Kind of a bummer if you ask me. They did provide boats, so I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

Moving on to McIntyre. The breeze was slow to fill on Saturday, with postponement ashore until around 1 o’clock. Racing began and ended in light and shifty breeze, which was less than enjoyable in the 420s, used to prepare for nationals in Wisconsin this year. All but a few races of the first round robin were completed that day. UCLA managed to beat UC Santa Cruz but lost a HEARTBREAKER to USC. We had a 1-3-4 rounding the leeward mark, and despite drawing a foul on the final beat, boats 2 through 6 ended up converging in a 5 boat cluster on their way upwind. After a blur of tacks, ducks, and profanity, UCLA ended up in the 5-6. I still have no explanation for what happened in those few seconds.

The forecast for Sunday was for strong breeze, and as promised, it blew about 15 knots all day. The first round robin was finished, with UCLA ending up in the bottom 4 of 10. A double consolation round robin was sailed, in which UCLA finished with 1 win and 5 losses. We caught a lot of frustrating breaks, including an umpire obstruction, which cost skipper Mark Anders the 1 in a race against Northwestern. Likewise, junior skipper Carmen Bozina had to avoid an umpire boat while doing a spin, which changed the combination in a race against Santa Cruz. Finally, Oscar fell out of the boat, which he really can’t blame anyone for no matter how he spins it. Maybe Tats. Yeah, Tats. Frustrating as it was, sailing in heavy breeze is always fun, and we came away from the weekend having learned a lot (particularly about starting strategy).

We’d like to give a big thanks to Carmen’s family for hosting us, and to Neha’s and Drew’s families for providing food. Next up is South 5 in Long Beach on the weekend of March 27th, where we can seal our qualifying spot for coed PCC’s! Details to come.

With 4 boats, 17 sailors, and 1 cheerleader in Billy “BoomStacks” Edwards (who is red-shirting this fall to save eligibility for a super-senior season) the UCLA Sailing team made a bigger entrance to the annual intersectional regatta than the Blue Angels that were flying overhead.

Coed PCCs was sailed at St. Francis Yacht Club hosted by Stanford University. Kelly Kephart skippered in A division with crews Joana Que and Drew Morton. Carmen Bozina skippered in B division with crews Danielle Ryan and Oscar Jasklowski. Both Carmen and Kelly were the only women skippers in their divisions and it was tough to keep up with the boys sailing on the San Francisco city front, wind averaging 20 knots. A division ended in 10th place, B division ended also in 10th place, overall UCLA ended up 10th in the Pacific Coast District.

St Francis is typically a high wind regatta that sees winds from 17 to 30 knots. This year that was not the case. Saturday racing was postponed due to a lack of wind and a huge current. Racing finally started around 1:30 in about 7 knots the wind increased to a high of 13 knots, 6 A division races were sailed and 4 B division races were sailed. Sunday saw much of the same conditions with a current that made it impossible to sail 4 B division rotations were finished and 2 A division races were finished. In these tough conditions in a 32 boat fleet UCLA finished 21st overall, 24th in A division and 19th in B division.

In A division races 1-6 were sailed by Kelly Kephart and Joana Que, races 7-8 were sailed by Shannon Walker and Tatsuma Woo-Kawaguchi.

B division races 1-2, 5-8 were sailed by Carmen Bozina and Danielle Ryan, races 3-4 were sailed by Carmen Bozina and Oscar Jasklowski.

Alex Adams was also in attendance as an alternate.
Thanks so much to recent alumni Steph Spilker and Steph Adams for coming out to watch and support us.
Also thank you to the Ryan’s who continuously provide wonderful food for our hungry sailors and to the Bozinas who open their home and also provide wonderful food to our team anytime we are in the area. We really do appreciate all of the support we get from UCLA parents =)

Coed PCCs will be sailed next weekend also at St Francis, so this weekend was hopefully good practice for that, if the conditions stay the same.

The McIntyre team included skippers Kelly Kephart, Carmen Bozina, and Oscar Jasklowski, crews included Joana Que, Danielle Ryan, and Tatsuma Woo-Kawaguchi.

Saturday teams sailed in light winds for about 6 races before the Stanford basin glassed over, teams waited for the breeze until about 3 and continued sailing in about 12 knots until 6:30 racing was followed by an umpire debrief and a dinner at Sequoia Yacht Club. 34 races of the first round robin were finished on Day 1. The end of the round robin was finished on Sunday morning in light winds splitting the fleet into a top 6 and bottom 4. Top 6 teams included UCI, Stanford, USC, Navy, UH, and Washington College. A consolation round was also sailed for the bottom 4 UCSB, UCLA, UW, and UCSD. The conselation round was sailed in 420s UCSD did not sail because of injury we raced UW and won then raced UCSB once for the round robin and despite a close race lost one. We then raced UCSB again for more practice and they were victorious again. This regatta was a very good learning experience for all, it really pays to sail against teams that know how to team race so we can get some real on the water experience.

It was also nice to meet a UCLA Alumni, Kevin Richards who was working with the umpire team for this event.

Thanks so much to recent Alum Steph Spilker who kept us all organized and energized with boat rotations and food runs. Thanks are also in order for the Ryan family who provided wonderful food for the regatta and the Bozinas for hosting us all at their house.

We sent a team of JV sailors to Treasure Island March 7-8 for the annual Cal Team Race. Skippers we had Billy Edwards, Kassie Klaritsch, and Andrew Segal crewing we had Taryn Aguiar, Neha Bazaj, Martha Thompson, and Lea Cohen. Mark Anders and Maggie Matthews were also in attendence to help facilitate the event. This regatta was a great learning experience for the team and they even won a few races. Other teams in attendance included 2 teams from the host UC Berkeley, UCSC, CMA, and Stanford JV. After 15 races UCLA JV ended with a 2-13 win loss record.

Stoney Burke day 1 and 2 started in a strong north-northeast breeze at 8-15kt and shifted to a lighternorth-northwest wind as the day progressed. Day 1 was sailed until about 6:30pm finishing 11 races in varsity, 10 in jv. Day 2 was concluded shortly before the 4pm deadline for a total of 15 races in varsity and 13 in jv.

Varsity was compromised of Captain Kelly Kephart and Joana Que sailing A division and Captain Mark Anders and Megan Sullivan sailing B division. For A division the regatta started out a bit rough with the large fleet on the line it was hard to get a good start. This team figured it out for the second day and sailed much better, finishing 13th in A division. B division sailed well all weekend tearing it up at the starts and around the course. This team finished consistantly in the top ten to finish 4th in B division. Overall the varsity team finished 8th in a fleet of 25 boats.

Women’s Varsity was sailed by Carmen Bozina and Danielle Ryan in A division and Shannon Walker and Anna Schoenbrunner in B division. In both A and B divisions the girls sailed fast around the course and improved their boat speed but, like varsity, had a few problems getting off the line in such a large fleet. A division finished 16th, B division finished 19th and overall UCLA Women finished 17th

We sent two jv teams who placed 14th and 16th in the jv fleet sailing in a miriad of combinations we had Kelly Trombley, Martha Thompson, Danny Wudka, Andrew Segal, Drew Morton, Morgan Glier, Victor Weisberg, Marina Visan, Taryn Aguir and Eric Chrisman. The fleet of 25 boats was a tough adjustment but everyone learned a lot especially about starting with a larger fleet which we don’t get much practice with. Everyone who sailed jv this weekend dealt with fluky conditions and we really held our own in the jv fleet finishing in mid fleet.

The women’s team sailed this weekend at the Stanford sailing center in Redwood City with 10 teams attending the event a record number of women’s teams for the pacific coast district.

Saturday got pretty windy varying between 5 and 15kts, the conditions were shifty and puffy and we started the morning with a slight rain that lifted by early afternoon. Both divisions sailed 10 races.
In A division we had Captain Kelly Kephart sailing with Shannon Walker for the races 1-6, 9,10 and sailing with Anna Schonbrunner for races 7,8. These new pairings focused on getting more comfortable sailing together and ended up taking 5th in A division.
In B division we had Carmen Bozina sailing with Danielle Ryan races 1-8. The pair were happy to be sailing together again as they dominated the afternoon with two bullets and two seconds. Shannon Walker with Danielle Ryan sailed races 9,10. Shannon new to sailing in women’s varsity events pulled out two very respectable 6ths. B division managed to finish fourth.
UCLA lady bruins also finished 4th overall in the Brysons women’s regatta

Sunday Stanford hosted a 2×2 team racing clinic. This informal event allowed all of the women’s teams to help each other learn team racing rules and tactics. All 5 women, Captain Kelly Kephart, Shannon Walker, Anna Schonbrunner, Carmen Bozina, and Danielle Ryan sailed in varying combinations and were able to work together to make some good moves and learn some strategies from mistakes that were better made here than in a qualifying regatta.

We also want to give a huge thanks to Matt Sirignano a recent UCLA alumni who was generous enough to volunteer his time to coach our team and share what he has learned throughout his sailing career.

In addition we would like to thank another recent UCLA alumni Steph Spilker who kept us all well fed and kept the team moral high with some sailing advice of her own.

We are so proud of the job these girls did this weekend keep up the good work :)

Traditionally Cal’s annual intersectional, Stanford hosted this year’s Stoney Burke due to scheduling conflicts with Treasure Island. It was the first regatta for UCLA since classes began last week, and although under-practiced the team averaged solid mid-fleet finishes, with skippers Matt Sirignano and Sam Wheeler breaking top 5 in multiple races. Breeze was on at the 9:30 AM report time, so racing began on schedule at 10:30 in 12-15 knots. Wind mellowed out to 8-10 knots by noon, and 8 races were heldin both A & B Divs. Sunday morning saw almost no breeze until almost 1 PM, with only one rotation for A and B divisions. This year’s Stoney Burke also saw the racing debut of our newest member Belen Arguelles, who crewed for Peter Collister in the JV B Division. And of course much thanks to Sarah’s lovely family for hosting us with– as usual– the utmost in hospitality and first class meals.

By Sarah Lewis
As the UCLA team headed to Norcal for the Annual St. Francis regatta the rains cleared leaving two beautiful days full of sunshine and lots of wind! 31 varsity teams came from all over the country, including the Universities of Hawaii, Notre Dame, and Columbia. Steady winds, characteristic of this region, blew around 12-15 knots both days, with gusts over 18 knots. Clearly this was not the weather for light air crews, as Varsity B crew Sarah Lewis learned after falling out of a moving boat, but recovering with a 16th place after losing only 2 boats. On Sunday JV races ended early due to high winds and multiple capsizes. UCI took an early lead on the weekend’s races, which it was able to hold onto despite strong comebacks by USC and Stanford.