The 16th annual Port of Los Angeles Harbor Cup will take place March 7 through 9 at the Los Angeles Yacht Club (LAYC). California State University Maritime Academy will host nine other collegiate sailing teams from around the country, including the defending champions from the Maine Maritime Academy.
“We consider ourselves one of the premier intercollegiate regattas,” said Tom Trujillo, Principal Race Officer and Staff Commodore at the Los Angeles Yacht Club.
One of the things that sets the event apart is that the LAYC provides all the housing aboard member’s boats or in their homes and meals for the competitors. The colleges pay for their own travel.
Schools competing this year include Cal Maritime, Maine Maritime, the U.S. Naval Academy, College of Charleston, Arizona State University, University of Hawaii, California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, University of Southern California, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Rules call for eight crew members including one female and each team must have a coach, advisor or responsible party from the school. The organizing authority is the Intercollegiate Sailing Association.
Maine Maritime won the inaugural regatta in 2008 and defended the cup the following year. USC took top honors in 2010, but then Cal Maritime went on a five-year run, winning the regatta from 2011 through 2015. College of Charleston from South Carolina broke the streak in 2016, but Cal Maritime was back on top when the spray settled at the end of the weekend in 2017. The next year, the Naval Academy, which draws from 90 cadets to make its team, won. In 2019, College of Charleston came out on top while Cal Maritime prevailed in 2020. There was no regatta in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Cal Maritime continued its reign in 2022 while Hawaii took its first win in 2023.
Through the event’s 16 year history, more than 1,400 athletes from 164 varsity sailing teams at 31 different universities have challenged for the cup.
In addition to Cal Maritime, the Naval Academy has competed every year. The Coast Guard has raced 15 times, while Maine Maritime and USC have participated 14 years. College of Charleston is making its 12th appearance.
For some schools, the biggest challenges of the Port of LA Harbor Cup is the challenge of racing larger boats in ocean conditions. All the teams sail one of 10 Catalina 37-foot-long sailboats and they rotate boats every day. Boats are stripped down with minimal navigation equipment so it’s up to the sailors to know how to navigate. “It’s not technically a match race, but it’s like match-racing because the boats are identical,” said Trujillo.
The competition takes place on a course about a mile long outside the Los Angeles Harbor breakwaters in the Pacific Ocean, which is something sailors from a school like Arizona State rarely see. The starting area will be approximately one nautical mile southwest of the harbor entrance.
“Many of these schools come from programs where they don’t race anything longer than 14 feet,” said Trujillo. Others might not typically deal with tasks like raising and lowering a spinnaker. If the conditions are too rough, there’s a backup course inside the breakwaters. Organizers are shooting for 10 races over the three-day regatta.
In addition to hosting the regatta, the LAYC provides a spectator boat that can hold about 25 people for Saturday and Sunday. Club members also take spectators out on their boats. Trujillo said the regatta draws interest from myriad organizations throughout Los Angeles and the event helps significantly for local community outreach. Participating schools promote their sustainability and environmental initiatives throughout the weekend.
The LA Harbor Cup has not yet seen the addition of youth sailing programs, but Trujillo, who is also a staff commodore for the TransPacific sailboat race, said he sees many collegiate sailors move up to opportunities with larger boats in ocean-crossing races.
The schedule for the weekend starts with a team breakfast and registration on Friday morning followed by a mandatory skippers meeting at 10:00 a.m. Sailing instructions will be delivered during the meeting.
The teams get their first experience with the Catalina 37s on the racecourse at 10:30 a.m. The warning signal for the first race will sound at 1:30 p.m., and the day wraps up with dinner for the teams and LAYC members at 6:30 p.m.
At 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, the teams can get in some practice before the first race signal goes off at 11:30 a.m.
At the dinner that evening, longtime competitive sailor and author Kimball Livingston will be the keynote speaker. He covered sailing in the San Francisco area since the 1970s and has written many books including Sailing the Bay.
The final day of action will start with the warning signal for the first race at 11:30 a.m. Sunday. The weekend will wrap up with the trophy presentation at a time to be announced.
