Alamitos Bay Turkey Day

[Tim Carter]

So Cal keeps on truckin..  12-14 Vipers signed up for the clubs biggest event of the year.  185 boats entered so far.  Vipers, Five O's, 29'er, Finns, A Cats, Lasers, ect.

Forecast is sunny and 70deg, 12kts on Sat, 20kts Sunday.  :P

I'm sorry, I heard it was cool back East...

[Brad Boston]

That is going to be so much fun!
Let us know how it went..
Brad

[Ed "Buttons" Padin, Class Administrator]

Alamitos Bay Yacht Club, Long Beach, CA Nov. 22-23.

This year's Turkey Day was well attended, 216 boats from a variety of classes.  The 5o5's even had four World Champions in the mix trying to cut lines for seconds on the pumpkin pie.  The forecast did not hold, however, Saturday was light (4-6 knots), but not very shifty, just better pressure on one side of the course.  Sunday filled-in nicely into the low to mid-teens.
The Newport boys, Alex Steele and Carson Reynolds, jumped on Alex's boat and showed that a well sailed two-up team can dominate in 5kts of breeze.  They were probably 100 lbs. lighter than the next closest team on weight and were just untouchable.  They put up a row of bullets until they pulled out early to sail the 20 miles home to Newport, and still won the turkey with 2 DNS on the score sheet.

This event also saw two new teams on the water, Wally Hollyday has brought #90 into town to join the So Cal fun and longtime one- design champion Alex Camet from North Sails chartered #104 to get a taste of what the Viper buzz was all about. 

This is Alex's report...

This annual regatta which has been going on for as long as I can remember is one of the best attended One-Design regattas in Southern California with 216 boats.  There are three main reasons this regatta is so successful, first you get to win a Turkey as a trophy, second the event is run by all volunteers, and third is the fantastic Turkey dinner Saturday night surrounded by all your friends.  This year was my first time racing in the Viper Class and I must say that this is a great class.  The boats are faster than a 505 downwind in light air and plane nicely in 12 knots of wind, plus you can tune the boat easily and enjoy very close and fast one-design racing.  We raced with a total of three people and the winners sailed double-handed.  Double-handed is very fast in the under seven knots we had on Saturday.  Sunday looked much the same as Saturday but filled in nicely to give us a chance to hike and plane downwind.  The local Viper fleet is growing nicely after hosting the North Americans this summer and welcomes new sailors, and next year's schedule includes around 13 events on the west coast circuit.  We are looking forward to sailing more Viper events in 2015 and are happy to be part of this fleet.

Tim Carter

Results: http://abyc.org/upload/2014_Turkey_Day1.htm