The town of Coronado California is located on a spit of land on the ocean side of San Diego, and encloses the South Bay. In this bay is a large US Navy base, the Coronado Yacht Club, and a superb yacht basin. This venue has been the site of Many FD regattas down the years. This year, Commodore Jim Algert arranged to have our North American Championship regatta at Coronado, and accommodated many of the out of state guests on his big boat, which is moored at his home nearby.

While setting up the FDs at the club on Thursday it became clear that there would be an informal east vs. west challenge, as four boats had come from each coast. The experience base of the contestants was quite varied also, Jim Algert, Bernardo Martinez and Paul Hemker have been sailing FDs since the early sixties, while Wally Eaton and Jonathan Clapp have only a few seasons in the boat.

The cool overcast, almost chilly, and threatening to rain on that Thursday was not quite what the Easterners had in mind, and racing Friday was also a bit grey and hazy in the morning, but for the most part the sun was out and the bay was gorgeous.  Winds varied from 6 to 12 knots.

In the first race on Friday Jim Algert took off and stayed out front with Lin Robson and Paul Hemker finishing second and third. After that Lin and Paul made it clear that they were in the first and second spot. Paul wrested two bullets away from Lin on Saturday, and Doug Dommermouth with French ex-pat Loic Bonizec on the wire grabbed the first place in the final race of the series, and took the third place trophy in the regatta.

Wally Eaton has been restoring a handsome wood-deck early eighties Mader boat, but still had a number of technical problems which kept him and crew Jeff Bassett from finishing all the races. The most spectacular being the loss of head stay and gen halyard at the same time causing a dismasting following a well executed leeward rounding.

Wally Eaton’s lovely wife Candy arranged some fabulous lunches of roast chicken, salads and rice  for the hungry sailors. Good food and good local beer really put a shine on regattas. The village of Coronado also has many fine restaurants and the FD sailors enjoyed a fair sample of these in the evenings.
 

sail nr helm              crew              r1 r2 r3 r4 r5 r6 r7 r8 total USA 410 Lin Robson        Serge Jorgenson    2  1  1  1  2  2  1  3  11 H    96 Paul Hemker       Jason Breeden      3  2  2  5  1  1  2  2  13 USA 153 Doug Dommermuth   Loic Bonizec       4  3  3  2  4  4  3  1  20 USA  87 Jim Algert        Justin Bingham     1  6  5  4  6  3  7  4  30 USA 251 Tim Sayles        Pavel Ruzicka      5  4  7  3  3  5  4  6  30 USA 805 Bernardo Martinez Harry Dunning      6  5  4  6  7 NS  5  5  38 USA   7 Jonathan Clapp    Jean-Pierre Moreau 7  7  8  7  8  6  6  7  48 USA  45 Wally Eaton       Jeff Bassett      NF NS  6  8  5 NC NC NC  55

The Race committee work by the Coronado YC was excellent, and the courses were interesting and varied. Awards were handled by Doug Dommermuth, and he had arranged a number of nice bonus prizes which were much appreciated.

Transportation of the Northeasterners' boats was arranged by Tim Sayles and Paul Hemker. The three boats were packed up on Paul's big trailer, and an independent hauler, Rodney Kieth was contracted to haul the trailer to and from San Diego. We got a good price for the job, and Mr. Kieth does nothing but tow boats around the country, so we felt this was  a safe and reliable process which we hope to use again.