Good winds, good times at Long Beach Race Week

LONG BEACH — Competitors greeted the final day of Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week (LBRW) on June 26 with tight racing in 14 classes on three windward-leeward and random leg courses. This after an eventful afternoon the day before when several great white sharks were sighted off the peninsula prompting a Marine Safety Advisory. The 4- to 7-foot juvenile sharks did nothing to dissuade the sailors from retuning to the bay for a final day of racing. Long Beach Yacht Club unseated LBRW co-host Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in the Yacht Club Challenge. The trophy is awarded based on the cumulative score of a team of three boats, competing in different classes – one of which must be a Catalina 37. Long Beach YC edged out Alamitos Bay YC by a slim .02 points thanks to a strong performance by Bruce Cooper and his J/70 crew, Medicine Man, and Dave Hood, who clinched his fourth Catalina 37 National Championship title today, in a dog-eat-dog battle with Chuck Clay’s Alamitos Bay YC team. Insanity won in the Farr 40s, and Jim held off Caper by 1 point, in J/120s. One sailor on Code Blue went for an inadvertent dip at the windward mark. Skipper...