S20 Nationals: Day 1

SantanaRama 2008: Day 1 Report by Snapper via Sailing Anarchy.

The Sailing Anarchy mantra is ‘where the status quo blows’, which was very fitting for day one of the 30th anniversary Santana 20 Class Championships
39 boats were on the line for race one, held in light to medium winds. The ‘status quo’ would have seen pre-regatta favorites Bruce Golison, Eric Kownacki and Chris Winnard (your scribe A.K.A Snapper) duking it out up front but at the first mark they were nowhere to be seen! In fact all three were buried on the wrong side of the course and ended up lucky to get 15, 16 and 17! The race was won by the Sacramento team aboard ‘Fusion’ with locals Ron Fish and two time champ Paul Stephens rounding out the top three.
The R/C decided to send everyone in to wait for the afternoon breeze and the keg was tapped. After an hour or so we were sent out for the remaining two scheduled races in what were challenging conditions to say the least! I have raced here for many years but have never encountered such tricky conditions. However, one team managed to sail to complete a solid day of sailing – Paul Stephens and crew aboard ‘Aquila’ turned in a great day posting finishes of 3,5,1 ending the day in a commanding lead. The ‘Loose Nuts’ crew sailed well and are in second with Eric Kownacki rounding out the top three with two good finishes races 2 and 3. otherwise known as Santanarama ’08.

One of the nice things about the class, unlike so many others, is that everyone is really friendly and willing to share any tips to help everyone get up to speed. I’m sure there are plenty of people reading this who are saying ‘oh yeah, Tuna 20’s, what a hack class’… well, there is plenty of well known talent here and they are deep! It’s not the J-24 fleet, where you can get protested for smiling too much or smelling of foreign food, it’s a class that has survived the course of time with all the usual ups and downs but is still a viable entity with a loyal following. Tomorrow looks to be light with racing probably to be held later in the afternoon.

-Snap

Certainly, tied for 15th wasn't what we were shooting for but the conditions were difficult ("the wind was just psycho") and not ideal (on the light side) for us. We'll see what tomorrow brings. It's interesting how mixed up the results are from what might have been expected -- even the "pros" had some bad races.

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