Stoney Burke Intersectional 2009

With 4 boats, 17 sailors, and 1 cheerleader in Billy "BoomStacks" Edwards (who is red-shirting this fall to save eligibility for a super-senior season) the UCLA Sailing team made a bigger entrance to the annual intersectional regatta than the Blue Angels that were flying overhead.

Sailing began according to schedule on Saturday morning, with a shifty 6-9 knot breeze filling in from the west. "It's hard out there. Boats are making both sides work. Roll for the instantaneous wind, not the average, because it's really puffy," coached captain and A division skipper Mark Anders as he handed B-division crew and fellow senior Tatsuma-Woo Kawaguchi the bailor. Following a solid A-division rotation, junior skipper Oscar Jasklowski's nerves seemed to be getting to him as he limped across the line in 17th in both of his first two races. "I really shat the bed on that rotation. And that late 70's FJ wasn't helping me out either," muttered a frustrated Jasklowski as he handed to boat off to a UC Irvine Anteater. In JV, senior skipper Eric Dita and crew Taryn Aguiar came out flying and bangin' corners with a couple of 6th place finishes. Junior skipper Drew Morton and sophomore crew Lea Cohen were not far behind in 9th.

As the day progressed, the wind picked up to a solid 12 knots for the second rotation and a blustery 17 knots for the third. Perhaps the highlight of the regatta came during Anders' and senior crew Neha Bazaj's second rotation, when they finished 4th, and subsequently 1st. Booyah. Considering this is Anders' first regatta in almost a full year, not too shabby. With stronger winds and a focusing pep-talk from BoomStacks, Jasklowski appeared to have gained some confidence after reeling in a 4th place finish. The building wind didn't phase Drew Morton or his tree-trunk quads as he hiked his way into 7th in JV-A on the day.

Sunday's 10a.m. report time seemed to catch Anders off guard, as he had some teammates ready to go by 9a.m. Sunday's breeze started off much stronger than Saturdays, with puffs up to 15 knots, but gradually died as the day progressed until the final signal start around 4p.m. After taking a shroud to the face and bleeding all over an Oregon FJ, varsity B-division crew Woo-Kawaguchi was on fire spotting puffs and shifts, finishing near the top of the fleet five races in a row. A great day in B-division was marred by a disqualification in the last race for being over early. Sounds like Jasklowski needs to look up at his sail number more often. Morton continued his consistent sailing, and Sophomore skipper Andrew Segal torched some opponents in B-division with 4 top 10 finishes on the weekend.

On behalf of the UCLA Sailing team, we would like to give a big thanks to Mark Anders' family and Richard Fuller's sister for giving us a place to sleep, eat, and warm up after the cold conditions. Also, new crews Erin Riley, Linda Wennerstrom, Carly Olenick, and Ingrid Shin deserve a special congratulations for braving the cold in the little gear they had. We hope to see them back for Frosh Soph in Mission Bay on October 17th.

Alumni Regatta

The first annual UCLA Alumni Regatta was sailed in Marina Del Rey on Sunday May 24th. Recent and older alumni raced along with current team members in a buzzards bash format. We fielded 18 boats that sailed in 2 fleet racing divisions to determine the team racing teams for the afternoon. 8 races total were finished by the 18 boats in the morning we took a lunch/free sail break to figure our team racing teams and racing resumed finishing one round robin with 6 teams.

Barbeque was provided all day and Alums met and mingled with current and other past team members. Friends of the UCLA Sailing Team (FOUST), the alumni group, conducted its first meeting and voted on officers President: Sam Wheeler, Vice President: Lyzz Schwegler, Treasurer: Blaize Wallace, Secretary: Stephanie Spilker, Team Liason: Kelly Kephart.

This event was a great success and we plan to continue the tradition annually. Thank you so much to the Alumni who came out to participate and donated their time and money to help the team. Special thanks to the current team members who helped run the regatta and sailed with Alums.

THANK YOU!!!

Women's PCCs

Women's PCCs was sailed in Santa Barbara, hosted by UCSB, 9 teams attended. A division was sailed by Kelly Kephart and Joana Que with Shannon Walker as the alternate, B division was sailed by Carmen Bozina and Danielle Ryan with Shannon Walker as the alternate.

Saturday began in a light easterly and quickly built up to the low 20's. Six races were completed in A and four in B, and most teams experienced at least one capsize. A division at the end of Saturday was in 3rd place, B division was in 6th. Overall the team was in 5th with only 5 points seperating 3rd to 6th place.

Sunday was sailed in light conditions 1-5 knots, 2 races were sailed in A and 4 in B. A division dropped to 4th place and B division finished in 5th. UCLA stayed in 5th place behind UCI and USC a mere 8 points out of qualifying for semi finals.

This regatta closes UCLA's 2009 season

Rainer, Oregon

UCLA drove close to 20 hours to compete in an intersectional with the North West division, the people that generally sail in the JV division attended this regatta to field both a Coed and Women's team. All sailors did very well but both teams were penalized 40 points for not filling out RP forms.

Saturday began with a steady 10-15 kts coming from the east. The wind died for 20 minutes early in the afternoon,but resumed the 10-15 kts until eventually stopping at 4pm. Four races in each division were sailed. Sunday began with a light 5-10 kts out of the east, but died to 2-5 kts shortly after A division began their first race. Only one A race was finished and racing was cancelled for the day.

Coed was sailed by Oscar Jasklowsi and Tatsuma Woo-Kawaguchi in A division and Drew Morton and Lea Cohen in B division. A division ended up 9th before the RP penalty, 12th after. B division ended up 3rd before the 20 point penalty, 7th after. Overall the Coed team finished 6th before the penalty, 10th after.

Women's was sailed by Shannon Walker and Anna Schoenbrunner in A division and Halie Kampman and Neha Bazaj in B division. A division ended up 14th before the RP penalty, 15th after. B division ended up 8th before the 20 point penalty, 14th after. Overall the Coed team finished 13th before the penalty, 14th after.

Coed PCCs

Coed PCCs was sailed at St. Francis Yacht Club hosted by Stanford University. Kelly Kephart skippered in A division with crews Joana Que and Drew Morton. Carmen Bozina skippered in B division with crews Danielle Ryan and Oscar Jasklowski. Both Carmen and Kelly were the only women skippers in their divisions and it was tough to keep up with the boys sailing on the San Francisco city front, wind averaging 20 knots. A division ended in 10th place, B division ended also in 10th place, overall UCLA ended up 10th in the Pacific Coast District.

St Francis

St Francis is typically a high wind regatta that sees winds from 17 to 30 knots. This year that was not the case. Saturday racing was postponed due to a lack of wind and a huge current. Racing finally started around 1:30 in about 7 knots the wind increased to a high of 13 knots, 6 A division races were sailed and 4 B division races were sailed. Sunday saw much of the same conditions with a current that made it impossible to sail 4 B division rotations were finished and 2 A division races were finished. In these tough conditions in a 32 boat fleet UCLA finished 21st overall, 24th in A division and 19th in B division.

In A division races 1-6 were sailed by Kelly Kephart and Joana Que, races 7-8 were sailed by Shannon Walker and Tatsuma Woo-Kawaguchi.

B division races 1-2, 5-8 were sailed by Carmen Bozina and Danielle Ryan, races 3-4 were sailed by Carmen Bozina and Oscar Jasklowski.

Alex Adams was also in attendance as an alternate.
Thanks so much to recent alumni Steph Spilker and Steph Adams for coming out to watch and support us.
Also thank you to the Ryan's who continuously provide wonderful food for our hungry sailors and to the Bozinas who open their home and also provide wonderful food to our team anytime we are in the area. We really do appreciate all of the support we get from UCLA parents =)

Coed PCCs will be sailed next weekend also at St Francis, so this weekend was hopefully good practice for that, if the conditions stay the same.

California State Team Race

With two team race regattas under our belts this year UCLA went to the US Sailing Center in Long Beach March 28-29. Cal State Team race is the qualifier for Team Race PCCs in April the top 6 teams from this regatta qualify for PCCs. 8 teams competed in the event UCI, Stanford, USC, CMA, UCSB, Cal, UCLA, and Chapman. 2 round robins were sailed with all 8 teams then the teams were split into a top and bottom 4 with the top 4 teams (Stanford, UCI, USC, CMA) going to PCCs and the bottom 4 teams (UCSB, UCLA, Cal, Chapman) battling it out for the last 2 spots. After the first 2 round robins UCLA was in 6th place beating Cal once and Chapman twice. UCLA then moved onto the final bottom 4 where we lost to UCSB and beat Cal and Chapman on the water. After several protests were heard between UCLA and Chapman, 12 points were added to UCLAs scores and the scores for the bottom three teams UCLA, Cal, and Chapman were brought to a tie breaker that couldn't be broken by who beat who. The points were then counted putting Cal in 6th place with 62 points UCLA in 7th place with 68 points and Chapman in 8th place with 71 points. UCLA did not qualify for Team Race PCCs but had a lot of experience with the protest room and learned that that is not the place races should be decided, we now know if in doubt we should do the circle to avoid a he said she said debate.

Skippers for this regatta were Kelly Kephart, Oscar Jasklowski, and Billy Edwards, crews were Joana Que, Danielle Ryan, Corey Rovzar, and Tatsuma Woo-Kawaguchi.

Congrats to Billy for sailing in his first Varisty regatta and to Corey for sailing in her first college regatta!!!
great job guys =)