Helping young sailors to find success

The Balboa Yacht Club’s Governor’s Cup Regatta festivities kicked

off on Tuesday. The event invites some of the world’s best young

sailors to Newport Beach to hop into one of the club’s Santana 20

sailboats and compete against their peers.

On Thursday, just before the actual four-day competition began,

race Information and Sponsorship Director Jack Butefish sat down on

the club’s patio with City Editor James Meier to discuss his

involvement and the race’s success. Race Chair Terry Reinhold also

stepped in for a few questions to help out and felt so comfortable,

he kicked off his sandals.

How long have you been attached to the Governor’s Cup Regatta?

Butefish: This is my first official year I’ve worked with the

volunteers. I was an attendee last time and I was asked by the

Commodore if I’d be willing to help out on the information side and

sponsorship side.

We’re so fortunate this year because this is the first time we’ve

had significant sponsorship. And we got that Yanmar and from

Boatswain’s Locker. We’re hoping that’ll continue to grow because,

right now, we provide accommodations in our homes for all of the

racers -- three-person teams from 12 yacht clubs. We’re hopeful in

the future we’ll be able to afford taking the groups to a hotel so

they could all be together.

The one thing we’d like to see come out of it is to have people

understand we do have a program [the Balboa Yacht Club Summer Junior

Sailing Program] for people to bring their kids to during the summer

and they can be introduced to the sailing world a bit. And maybe they

can take home the things they learn in terms of discipline and

responsibility. We have a terrific instruction staff and that’s one

of the things that this race provides is funding for activities like

that. That makes it worthwhile.

Now I understand the event received a new designation this year

from U.S. Sailing so that it’s a junior championship. Tell me what

that does for the race.

Butefish: It has had its stature increased. It’s structured

differently than it had been in the past and it puts us on a top

level with events like the Sears Cup and pre-Olympics events.

As a result, we have a house full of umpires, referees, whatever

you call them -- officials -- from the United Kingdom, New Zealand,

Australia, etc. They’ll kind of look over our shoulder to be sure our

race management team is up to speed. We’ve always passed muster. Our

hopes are pretty good.

Reinhold: I’d say really it adds more pride than probably anything

else. It certainly adds to the competition among the sailors and the

desire of officials to come here.

How long have you been involved in the race?

Reinhold: Six years. I’ve been chairman for three.

How has it changed in just these six years?

Reinhold: I think it’s become much more professional. I think it’s

taken more seriously among the sailors, some of whom have been here

-- for one of them, it’s his fifth Governor’s Cup, so he’s been

coming here since he was 15. That’s Scott DeCurtis from King Harbor.

Three of those times out, he was on the championship team. He was

crew on all three of those teams. Now he’s the helmsman.

What’s exciting about this year’s event?

Butefish: A couple of things. We’re extremely impressed with the

quality of the participants. They’re really, really well-recognized

and extraordinarily good sailors in their own area. They’re willing

to come in here and get on an unfamiliar boat [Santana 20s] that’s

not used in their countries. They got familiar with the boats

[Wednesday] and their boats were screaming. We had from 12 to 16

boats and that gave the kids the chance to really find out how the

boats are going to handle under these conditions.

We’re anticipating, from weather reports, that we’re going to have

a full week of breeze. It comes up about 1:30 or so. The races take

place off the Newport Pier. They’re beautiful from the pier.

The competitive opportunity they have on that course to sail on

various points of sail and demonstrate their abilities to tack, jibe,

handle the spinnaker. Although they’re small boats, they carry a

full-size spinnaker. So these kids got into it and a few of them have

not sailed a Santana 20 before, but you would think they’d have

sailed it all their life. They just pushed off and took off. It was

“Hoorah! This is all right.” The kids were really pumped.

So I think that is exciting. And I think it’s only fair to say

we’re delighted to have an all-female team who are here because they

are good sailors. They score very high. They sailed in the Women’s

Rolex World Championship [match racing]. It’s a three-lady team. They

also had success in the Sears Cup. They apparently tied for first

place and had to have a runoff [in the regional finals]. They lost in

the runoff, so they ended up in second place. But that is quite

astounding for one 15-year-old and two 16-year-olds. Extraordinary.

Why do you think the now 36-year-old race continues its success?

Butefish: That’s an extremely important question that wasn’t asked

[Wednesday] night at our welcoming ceremony. We really should. Why

does this have an appeal and why does it survive and why are these

yacht clubs prepared to spend the money they spend to send their

kids?

When the race began, they wanted to have an endorsement by

somebody prestigious so one our member’s parents, Lee and Chet

Purcell, went to then-Gov. Ronald Reagan and said “This is what we’re

trying to do at Balboa Yacht Club. We’re trying to build junior

sailing. We’d like to have a race that would create enthusiasm for

these young people, give them something to aspire to and really do it

right.” So that’s how it all began.

Then, what really kept it going, is that this family -- these

people are no longer with us -- have had commodore after commodore of

the club. They’ve been active and have helped keep it alive.

I think a lot of it is attributable to being inspired like I was.

I came down and watched this thing and thought “You know, this is

really worthwhile. These are great kids and they’re extremely --

well, they’re kids -- but they’re respecting and really well-behaved.

We have a trophy that is every bit as important as a winning trophy

for the team that displays superior sportsmanship.

It feels good. It just feels like it’s worth doing. I don’t know,

it just perpetuates itself. They’re already talking about next year.

And I have to say, I’ll fit it into my schedule and I don’t make dime

and there’s a lot of things I can be doing, but this is really fun.

This is grass-roots, down home; the best of the best kids in the

world are coming down here. And that’s great for the city, great for

the harbor and we’re very proud of this.

What do you think your involvement will be next year? Much of the

same?

Butefish: I would assume so because that’s my only expertise that

I can bring to this. I would be happy to do whatever they feel they

need. I can be a race official. My bag has been sports entertainment

for so long. I feel like I wanted to something helpful for the junior

program. I didn’t want to do it by writing a check. That’s not what

it’s all about. It’s being able to sit down with people like yourself

and being able to tell them a little about what we’re up to.

It’s about getting the word out to remind people when summer comes

around, they should bring their kids down here and have them take a

look at this program that’s headed up by Ben Benjamin, one of the

finest young sailors in the harbor. He has a team of instructors that

are just extraordinary. The kids respect them. There’s a lot of

responsibility when you take these little guys out there. You got to

make sure they do have their life-jackets on. Their families are

entrusting their kids to these high school- and college-age people.

They just do a slick job. I just wish I could do it all over again

and get my kid involved in something like this.

This is one of the few yacht clubs that says “You have a young

person who wants to sail, bring them down here and we’ll love to give

them a chance. If they scream and hate it, we’ll understand it.”