Go For The Gold Regatta—Fast, Fun and Friendly Sailing

The 27th Gold Country “Go For The Gold” Regatta was held June 7-8 at Scotts Flat Lake. The Northern California U20 fleet brought six boats up to the scenic mile-high Sierra Nevada reservoir. Camping, a great Saturday evening barbecue (with a live band echoing classic rock through the campground into the sunset) and two days of mix-it-up racing made this a great event.  It also served as a tune-up for the North American Championships, and several U20 teams showed up with their “A Game”, and with the teams they’re sailing with at Huntington Lake.
 
Cinderella Story unrolled a new suit of sails for the first time, and John Andrew, Gordon Wanlass and Jennifer Andrew showed good speed all around the course on Saturday. This crew, who will be sailing together at Huntington Lake, won all three races the first day to put the regatta in the bag. John Wolfe, Simon Dvorak and Lance Kim will also be racing the North Americans together on Breakaway, and they wasted no time, practicing their spinnaker work between races. Trent Watkins on UFO also rolled out the big guns, including new San Francisco U20 dealer Drew Harper of Spinnaker Sailing. Salsa and Babe sailed with family crews.
 
Tom and Trish on Layla didn’t have their act together to find a third crew (the wind never blows at Scotts Flat, said Tom), so of course on Saturday the breeze was up to about 15-18 in the gusts. Nonetheless, they aced the first start and got around the top mark in the lead. Since they also mis-read the course, they started sailing DDW instead of reaching to the first triangle, giving up the lead, which Cinderella Story never gave back.  The next two races the folks on Cinderella Story showed their smooth, professional crew work to win both.
 
Sunday, the breeze was more typical (as in light and flukey). Layla and Cinderella Story, carrying identical Glaser sails, sailed with their usual even speed around the course. Layla found a few shifts to win both Sunday races. The Northern California group enjoyed the fun, casual and friendly mountain atmosphere at Go For The Gold, and are sending eight boats to the North Americans at Huntington Lake in a few more days.
 
1 John Andrew 153                      Cinderella Story       1 1 1 2 2      7.00
2 Trish Sudell/ Tom Burden 92      Layla                       3 2 3 1 1    10.00
3 Trent Watkins 27                      UFO                         2 3 5 4 3    17.00
4 Phil Kanegsberg 155                 Babe                        4 4 2 3 4    17.00
5 Steve Boroughf 94                    Salsa                       5 6 4 6 5    26.00
6 John Wolfe 180                         Breakaway               6 5 6 5 6    28.00