Single-handed classes to compete at 2020 San Diego Olympic Classes Regatta

2019 San Diego Olympic Classes Regatta © Bob Betancourt

The San Diego Olympic Classes Regatta (SDOCR) will be held on Saturday, August 8 and Sunday, August 9, 2020. Due to county and state restriction during the Covid-19 pandemic, the regatta will be limited to single-handed classes only including Finns, Lasers, and Laser Radials.

The third annual running of the event will be raced on Coronado Roads, south of Point Loma, allowing for national-level race management and competition.

The San Diego Olympic Classes Regatta was established in 2018 to provide sailors of all ages with a venue to train and compete in international, high performance classes. San Diego's long history of Olympic sailing achievement will hopefully inspire sailors to participate and reach for the pinnacle of success in our sport.

Among this year's participants are sister and brother Alice and Calvin Schmid sailing in the Laser fleet. Alice has only been sailing in the Laser for about two months and is excited to race in the regatta. "I wanted to race in a larger fleet as there haven't been many regattas this summer. My goals for the future include going to Youth Champs in 2021 and maybe even qualifying for the Youth Worlds. I also am looking forward to 2028 Olympic in LA."

Along with Alice, many of the young sailors participating in the San Diego Olympic Classes Regatta have an aspiring future in the sport and use regattas like these for the appropriate level of high-performance experience.

Competitors will be invited to the Skipper's Meeting scheduled for 0900 on Saturday, August 8 outside on the Sailwash Lawn. Social distancing will be enforced for those attending in person. Anyone who wishes to attend via Zoom may do so with a link that will be posted online. The first race will begin on Saturday at 1200. Due to restrictions, there will be no post-racing events in person. Results can be found online and through SDYC social media accounts. Prizes will be mailed to the competitors after the event.

Jeff Johnson, the SDYC Waterfront Director explains some of the history surrounding the event. "This is the third year for this event although the concept has been around for a long time. Alamitos Bay Yacht Club has been doing an OCR for over 50 years, although it devolved to include other regionally popular classes as many of the competitive Olympic Class sailors were lured to Europe to train and compete on the world stage. With the carrot of the summer Olympic games in Los Angeles in 2028, training for US Olympic Class sailors, and youth development in the US, especially on the west coast is only going to get more intense over the next eight years. In four years, the world stage will be here anticipating the LA28 games. And it is true that someone, right now in our junior fleet, is very likely to be a contender for the 2028 Olympic Games! Let's go racing and find out how everyone is doing!"

Looking towards the future of the regatta is Chair Susi Graff. "This year's SDOCR will be an abbreviated version of past events, with far fewer fleets racing. The current pandemic situation and county health regulations only allow us to have single-handed boats, and therefore the fleets are limited to the Finns, Lasers and Laser Radials. In 2021, the SDOCR will be held in late June or early July as the US Sailing Olympic Program long term strategy splits the domestic OCR schedule into three geographic areas: Fall/Winter - Florida, Spring/Summer - California, Late Summer/Early Fall - New York. The SDOCR event next year will host a number of current and legacy Olympic classes, along with the Flying Dutchmen Nationals."

See the 2020 SDOCR Notice of Race [PDF] or sdyc.org