Yacht clubs match skills

TONY DODERO

The sun was bright Thursday morning, and great gusts of wind were

blowing across Newport Harbor, touching off swirling white caps

throughout the bay.

Probably perfect sailing weather, I thought to myself as I headed

to the Newport Harbor Yacht Club.

Well not quite, but more on the wind in a minute.

My mission this day was simple: learn a little bit about yacht

racing, and what better way to do it than attend the morning start of

the Pacific Life Yacht Club Challenge, where nine of the nation’s top

yacht clubs square off with their top racers through this Sunday.

Those clubs include Newport Harbor and Balboa Yacht Club locally;

California Yacht Club, Marina del Rey; Bayview Yacht Club, Detroit,

Mich.; Rochester Yacht Club, Rochester, N.Y.; San Diego Yacht Club,

San Diego; San Francisco Yacht Club, Belvedere; St. Francis Yacht

Club, San Francisco; Houston Yacht Club, Houston; and Southern Yacht

Club from New Orleans.

Newport Harbor Yacht Club -- the oldest in Newport Beach,

established in 1917 -- has been hosting this regatta since 1984.

With the help of Newport Harbor Yacht Club official Bob Yates, I

got a first-class lesson on yacht sailing and the lingo they use.

Skippers and spinnakers, mark boats and stake boats all were made as

clear as the Newport Harbor waters.

Seriously though, this particular yacht race, I learned, is what

they call a match race, in which sailors from across the country team

up to race in the exact same type of boat, in this case Catalina 37s,

a sailboat designed specifically for yacht racing.

“It’s probably the most prestigious match racing event for an

amateur,” said local sailing legend Dave Yullman. A 55-year veteran

of the sport, Yullman is a sail maker and world champion in a handful

of racing classes.

Tom Gilbertson, a Newport Harbor Yacht Club official, agreed.

“It’s not the biggest event we do, but it’s the premier event,” he

said. “This is for bragging rights.”

So what about those winds? Shouldn’t more wind make your sailboat

go faster, I asked Newport Harbor’s staff commodore Phil Ramser.

He patiently explained it to this landlubber.

“When winds blow out of the northeast, the seas are flatter,” he

told me. “But when the winds are out of the west, it gets very, very

rough in the Pacific Ocean. Fifteen knots is perfect.”

Problem was the winds were blowing more than 20 knots Thursday

morning and the forecast called for the possibility of up to 60 knots

in the canyons.

While that probably was not going to happen here, the gusty threat

was enough to postpone the race for a bit and give me time to prowl

around the docks and ask a few more dumb questions.

Next person I met was Pete Ives, no relation to folksinger Burl,

who is the chief umpire of the race.

What does a chief umpire do?

“He keeps all the other umpires in line,” Ives quipped.

So what about an umpire? What does he do?

You’re probably getting the gist of how deep my questions were

now.

Basically, an umpire settles disputes between racers who think

there has been a foul during the race. When that happens, the racers

raise a “Y” flag, he said.

Does that mean yacht racing is rife with cheaters, I asked Ives

and Yates?

“It’s a gentlemen’s sport,” Yates pointed out.

Yates later introduced me to Nathan Hollerbach, a young man from

Detroit, Mich., who was out for the match race representing the Bay

View Yacht Club.

Detroit? Where do you sail yachts in Detroit, I asked?

“We sail on Lake St. Clair,” Hollerbach told me. “It’s right

between Erie and Lake Huron.”

And I thought I was a landlubber.

He said he likes match racing because everyone is evenly matched,

and it comes down to the ability of the sailors.

“Newport Harbor Yacht Club has always been well known in the

sailing community,” Hollerbach said. “When you get an opportunity to

come here, you jump right on it.”

Next I met Bill Cook and Bill Palmer, two locals who were in

charge of operating the mark set boat, Puffin.

They explained how the mark set boat places the inflatable buoys

that the racers sail around and how hard it is to keep them in one

spot.

“They have to be set precisely,” Palmer said. “Sometimes we’ll

move the mark 20 times during the day.”

Next up was Chris Perkins, last year’s reigning champion from the

St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco.

What does that mean to be the champ, I asked?

“It doesn’t mean anything other than you have a target on your

back,” he said. “But it’s all about momentum.”

Racers are largely a masculine lot, deeply tanned from years at

sea. So it was clear that Ginger Spencer, a 23-year-old Tulane

University college student from New Orleans, stood out as one of the

few women to make a racing team.

“They know to watch their manners around me,” she said.

Why do these people come from around the nation to attend?

It’s because the yachting community is a close-knit one -- but one

that needs to keep the public aware of how much fun it is, Yates

said.

“We do it to increase the notoriety of sailing,” Yates said. “It’s

not a huge community, but it’s a very friendly community.”

I got that answer without having to ask.

FYI

* WHAT: Pacific Life Yacht Club Challenge Match Race

* WHEN: Through Sunday from 10 a.m to 4 p.m.

* WHERE: Starting at Newport Harbor Yacht Club and racing off the

Newport Pier

* IF YOU GO: You can reserve a space on a spectator boat by

calling (949) 673-7730

* INFO: www.nhyc.org