Oct. 15, 2008
Treasure Island, Calif.- Two-time defending champions Stanford Sailing fell just short of claiming the 2008 Stoney Burke Regatta this weekend hosted by UC Berkeley and the Treasure Island Sailing Center. Stanford sailors Cole Hatton '11 and Hayley Tobin '11 took command of the varsity A- boat, and Graham Todd '11 and Ale Lynberg '11 controlled the varsity B-boat. The sophomore team showed their strength with solid racing throughout the regatta. Hatton and Tobin finished 3rd place in A-division, and Todd and Lynberg anchored the overall results with a solid 2nd place finish in B-division.
In JV action, Ben Pedrick `11 and Laura Lilly '12 sailed the A-boat to 2nd place, and Oliver Ruhiluoma '12 and Justin Doane '12 placed 3rd sailing in the B-boat. The JV squad finished in 2nd overall, just behind JV regatta champions CMA.
The first bay area intersectional in the fall sailing schedule, the annual competition of the Stoney Burke Regatta brought 24 teams from all over the west coast, with schools as far north as the state of Washington and as far south as the city of San Diego.
Graham<!> Todd and Ale Lynberg |
Saturday's conditions brought the unusual for San Francisco Bay, with a light, shifty northerly breeze giving way to an afternoon westerly, in which racing continued until sunset. After nine races in A-division and eight races in B-division, Stanford was only a slim five points out of first by the end of the first day of the two-day regatta. All that Stanford sailors needed to do was to continue to execute their conservative game plan, and with the arrival of a more consistent breeze on Sunday, they were excited with their chances to win the regatta.
By the end of some consistent across-the-line finishes on Sunday, the Stanford sailors were confident that they had won the regatta. It was not until after the Stanford sailors had left the site and returned home to attend to their academic endeavors that the final results were posted. With a mix-up of scoring results placing Stanford sixth, and then first, and maybe even somewhere in between, Stanford ended up 3rd overall, just behind rival USC and regatta champion UCSB. A sportsmanlike decision by Stanford's A-boat skipper Cole Hatton to retire from race 11, in which he believed his boat to be OCS ("On the Course Side," or something similar to a false start) gave the team an RAF ("Retired After Finish") penalty that ultimately cost the team the win, but maintained the team's honorable reputation.
Many sailors claim Clipper Cove, nestled in Treasure Island, as the best college sailing site in northern California. With its central location on San Francisco Bay, a strong thermal sea breeze provides the site with a fairly consistent sea breeze from mid-April until mid-October. The layout of Treasure Island provides a geographical twist to Clipper Cove, providing for tricky, randomized shifts and puffs among the usual oscillations of the sea breeze.
Next up, the Stanford Sailing Team looks forward to more east coast action at the Navy Fall Intersectional next weekend, October 18-19 in Annapolis, MD.