The View From Oxnard

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Tell me you are from Oxnard, CA. (home to Channel Islands Harbor) and I cry like Rex Reed at gay porno film festival. See, I did all my sailing as a kid there, and I have tons of great memories from what is truly Back in the Day. So an Oxnard homeboy sent us their account of the Coastal Cup from Frisco to Catalina aboard the Andrews 56 Quantum, and here it is for your reading pleasure.

A regular dropped out at the last minute and Erik Bohman called me to see if I wanted to the Coastal Cup aboard Quantum, Andrews 56, run by Eric & Chewie, Oxnard - Ventura local sailors. They said I could bring my son if I wanted to (Nick, 18, first ocean race). So I said yes and it was epic!! At least half was anyway. Clear sky all the way, no fog till after the finish. We saw steady 30's overnight in the wind department, with some savage gust onslaughts to 38. We had sustained boat speed in the 17s with surfs to 21 and once I saw 22. Wow.

Then the moon went down. Two wheels, a backup helmsman calling true wind angles to the primary driver. I was driving with eyes only for the compass and keeping the boat under the kite. Green water over the deck, the bow lights looking like some kind of restaurant fountain with the spray all lit up green and red. Send the boat down the big black holes and hang on. Watch system all shot to hell, drivers on half-hour shifts, grinders rotate each 15 minutes.

We took the outside route, mostly 'cause that's where we ended up. We were half way down Santa Rosa Island by 10:00 am, and the wind lightened up. Mostly 10 - 15 rest of the way down, 5 hrs of very light wind then a match race with a SC 52 for the finish. We won the match race but owed the 52 too much time. We were 3rd to finish, the boys think we corrected out on the two in front, but I think a few more corrected out on us.(Note - they ended up 3rd in class and 6th overall - Ed)

Nick (my son) did great, he did the pit during some heavy air peels, helped on the bow, took his shifts grinding, did some trimming, drove a shift in the lighter stuff on Sunday and thought everything was just grand fun, couldn't make him go below to catch a nap. Good Fathers Day!

Very strange finish, we went to a GPS waypoint and pulled a pin on a RC supplied race clock. No RC on station. It was weird, kind of like a WW2 bomber movie, the owner was down stairs on the gps plotter calling course corrections up to the deck as we got close. "Left a little, left more, hold that, right a bit, steady, steady, Now!" then he pulled the pin and that was it.

We left Ventura Friday at noon (I get out of work at 11:00) drove to SF, got on the boat at 7:00 am, started at 10:00, sailed to Catalina, finished at 1:00 am Monday, motored back to Oxnard, tied up to the dock at 6:30 am, took a shower put on a necktie and went to work. That is a Full Weekend!

Pete M

The dawg hails from this sleepy little port too. woof