ABYC Boxing Day Pursuit Race

Last Saturday, December 29, 2007, 65 boats entered the popular ABYC Boxing Day Pursuit race held inside Alamitos Bay. Entries were diverse and ranged from the Naples Sabots, Lido 14's, Snipes, Cal 20's and 25's, Mercuries, Snowbirds and various keelboats and catamarans. ABYC sailor and PRO Mark Townsend has built this casual day race into quite the annual event! Using the Portsmouth rating system the boats all started at their assigned time LeMans style off the ABYC long dock.



We entered our Tim Kernan designed Columbia 30M for a fun sail around the bay and to see how many of the fleet we could track down being the last monohull to start . My son Steve was on board along with my close friends and accomplished sailors that included Bruce Golison, Steve Brown, Scot Atwood and Pat McCormick. Scot's friend Tom joined us as well and did a great job. The course took us around Alamitos Bay for a few laps of busy sailhandling for us. These guys all did a great job getting the sails up and down in the cramped quarters for Pacific High inside Alamitos Bay! We managed to pick off all but 9 boats and finished 10th overall and second in the keelboat class--- not a bad finish for having to maneuver in such close quarters at low tide with no room for error!

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