OCC headed for New York

Skipper Payson Infelise led the Orange Coast College sailing team to

a 13-point total over six races and a first-place finish at the

Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Association Southern Area

Elimination Sloop Championships last Saturday in Newport Harbor.

Victory in the event, the first-ever for the sailing program since

the team was founded in the 1950s, sends the team to the 2003-04 ICSA

Sloop North American Championship Nov. 7-9 at SUNY Maritime College

in Throggs Neck, N.Y.

“The team was very mature in their sailing and boat handling,

showed great tactics and sailed very clean,” said head coach Jim

Jorgensen, who was a member of the team when he was a student at

Coast. “We surprised everybody at the regatta, but nobody more than

ourselves.”

Along with tactician Carson Reynolds and Four-Deck Nathaniel

Campbell, Infelise and the Pirates won a tiebreaker with USC and UC

Irvine after Friday’s preliminary rounds. The team finished the six

races ahead of USC (18 points), UC Irvine (19), Cal (21), Hawaii (27)

and Cal State Maritime (27).

Each team raced one time each in a series of six boats with points

being calculated for the place won in each event.