The Harold Adams Team Race is an annual favorite among junior sailors in Southern California. It brings together the top yacht club and high school team racing teams from around our region. Many of the winners of the HA have gone on to win the High School Team Race Nationals and other prestigious events. Team Racing is a fun and fast-paced discipline of sailing that pits a team of three boats against another. Unlike traditional fleet racing where all boats are trying to get to the finish line as soon as possible, team racing has various elements of boats slowing others to put their teammates in more advantaged positions. Tools such as marktraps, passbacks, and slowing are utilized to improve your teams finishing position. San Diego Yacht Club hosted this event and provides 24 CFJ dinghies with matching color-coded sails.
This year SBYSF was able to field two team for this event. The regatta format was a randomized first round robin, followed by a gold/silver split, and finished with a final-four. Having three total meetings between teams helps to eliminate ties.
Saturday started with a short postponement before a light southerly breezed filled the course. With coaches acting as umpires, racing got underway. Our two teams began in the same flight of teams. We were able to race all day long, completing the first-round robin and venturing into the gold/silver split. At the end of RR1 we had one team qualify for Gold Fleet and on qualifying for Silver.
Sunday brought lighter winds and a moderate postponement. Race Committee was eager to begin racing once the breeze filled La Playa Basin. We finished up the top six Gold Round Robin with SBYSF1 qualifying for the final four in third place. SBYSF2 won some hard fought races, finishing the event eighth. In the final four, SBYSF1 took a loss to PLHS and Mater Dei. Our final race against PLHS2 was the deciding race for third place overall. Our sailors fought hard beating their team and finishing third overall! The best team racing result a SBYSF team has accomplished.
Congratulations to SBYSF1 for placing third overall: Ryan Satterberg/Crue Ziskind, Oliver Stokke/Catalina Matlock-Klein, and Blake Behrens/Teo Lee. A shoutout to SBYSF2 on their 8th place finish: Carly Kieding/Hope Campbell, Jon Seawards/Sam Long, and Liam Andresen/Magne Henriques.
