I got to hang out at the Extreme San Diego Series this weekend, and while that was fun, the real highlight was getting to be guest skipper (kidding!), actually a guest sailor, onboard Oman Air for race #4 Sunday.
It goes without saying that we won that race (also kidding) and the team went on to win the series by two points over the very well sailed Alinghi. When I say it wasn’t extreme, that’s because San Diego served up under 8 knots of breeze for the final two days, so these 32′ foilers never really got a chance to show their stuff. That’s us at the finish of race #4. Photo by Mary Hardy.
Having said that, sailing with skipper Phil Robertson, Pete Greenhalgh and Stewart Dodson was to witness some of the best sailing one could want to see. Phil absolutely crushed the start, shoved Alinghi back early, and the communication, teamwork and boatspeed for the rest of the race was excellent.
These guys’ game was tight and it was truly impressive to watch their efficiency. I joked afterward that, on A4, we sail just like that, only worse.
OC Sport did a great job running the event, the hospitality was great, the food and drink superb, the girls were cute, and for us, it was a killer weekend. Cool to see local heavyweights like Bruce Nelson, John Reichel, JJ Fetter and others also watching the racing. everyone seemed to dig it. Scene from the VIP area.
Sure, I can always find something to complain about, but all I really noticed was some really annoying race announcing, and then some flat god-awful race announcing. The live Extreme announcer never, ever stopped talking through every race. Never. Add the Brit accent and it just became a blur of words, that you just simply stopped listening to. I told the organizers to tell him to take a breath once in a while, but apparently he didn’t get the memo.
Before that, the poor O’pen BICs had to suffer through the voluminous “ums” and “uhs” of Craig Leweck, who is so awful he should never be allowed within 500 feet of a microphone. Amateur hour.
Oh well, nothing is perfect, and the overall experience of the entire event was superb. One hopes the series continues to be successful, and let’s order up some breeze for next year! – ed.
