Point Loma Outfitting - sailing clothing, outdoor performance wear, foul weather gear in San Diego

Camet  shorts were  tested and compared bt Practical Sailor Magazine with 8 pairs of padded sailing shorts on the market, to find out which would offer the most protection and comfort. Just as we have been saying all along, while you may pay a premium for their shorts, they are still the best value on the market!

The Camet shorts have been through a bench and field test by the independent magazine Practical Sailor and are recommended as a best buy for 2012, for durability, quality and price. The shorts received and excellent rating for the following features:  Overall construction, abrasion resistance, drying time, comfort, color fastness, and shrinkage, odor, pockets, pad use and price.

The women’s Wahine received the Practical Sailor 2012 Editor’s Choice . Rating based on Overall construction. They were the top pick since they are well tailored for female bodies, dry fast, color fast very comfortable and held up very well during the bench and field test.

So check out the Wahine and Martinique at http://www.pointlomaoutfitting.com/c/CWS.html.

For you skippers, Camet shorts make good crew gear when you have a stable crew that you sail with year in, and year out as these shorts will easily last three seasons.

Kaenon Polarized Sunglasses has inroduced two new frames for Mid-Summer, Hutch and Wishbone.

Suitable for a wide variety of face shapes and sizes, the new Hutch features a “relaxed” wrapped design for maximum peripheral coverage from the sun and the elements. Grasping the wearer with lightweight comfort, clean lines and thin temples, Hutch comes equipped with Kaenon’s polarized SR-91 lens making it a no-brainer for ultimate glare-reduction and clarity in an easy to wear frame design.

Introducing our newest women’s frame, Wishbone! This lightweight, frame is crafted and hand painted in Italy and houses Kaenon’s proprietary polarized SR-91 lenses for all day comfort, style and clarity.With a hexagonal lens and frame shape that is complimented by thinly sculpted temples, Wishbone helps you channel your inner Audrey Hepburn, as Kaenon once again modernizes a classic women’s fashion design. Moderately sized, Wishbone is our first 6 base women’s sunglass, housing their proprietary SR-91 polarized lenses. This lightweight, feminine frame is crafted and hand painted in Italy, and embedded with discreet, low profile Kaenon icons.

Check them out, and be the first to be sporting these stylish frames.

The Jules Verne Trophy now belongs to ten men who have sailed around the globe at an average of 18.76 knots along the optimum course, beating the reference time set by Orange 2 in 2005 by 2 days 08 hours 35 minutes. Franck Cammas and his men crossed the finish line off the Créac’h lighthouse at Ushant (Finistère) at 21h40’45″ UTC Saturday 20th March. They are due to make the Port du Château in Brest at around 0900 UTC tomorrow. n 48 days 07 hours 44 minutes, Groupama 3 has certainly had her highs and lows, as she hasn’t always been ahead of the reference time set by Bruno Peyron and his crew in 2005. On the contrary! The giant trimaran had a deficit of just over 500 miles in relation to Orange 2 and was only able to beat the Jules Verne Trophy record thanks to a dazzling final sprint from the equator. At that stage they had a deficit of one day and two hours, but by devouring the North Atlantic in 6 days 10 h 35′, Groupama 3 quite simply pulverised the reference time over this section of the course. The skipper Franck Cammas, navigator Stan Honey, watch leaders Fred Le Peutrec and Steve Ravussin, helmsmen/trimmers Loïc Le Mignon, Thomas Coville and Lionel Lemonchois, and the three bowmen Bruno Jeanjean, Ronan Le Goff and Jacques Caraës, supported on shore by router Sylvain Mondon, have pulled it off: they have beaten the round

by Eric Lind
John MacCausland & Kevin Murphy Win Star North American Championship

Wind for the day was predicted to be Southeast at 6 building to 10, but the 30 Star boats sailed out of the Harbor to find East wind at 12 to 13 that held for the duration. PRO John Koopman called for another 4 leg W/L and the fleet started clean with no recalls. Second place team of MacCausland/Murphy won the race and cut the 4 point lead of Merriman/Trinter to 1 point as they finished 4th.

With a 1400 cutoff time looming and with the conditions deteriorating it appeared that the next race would be the last. The start of the race was the defining moment as Merriman/Trinter were OCS and did not return. When they were notified at the weather mark they chose to head for the hoist. Knowing that Merriman/Trinter would have to now count their 14th in R2 and that they would only have to count a 4, MacCausland/Murphy chose to drop out the next time around and head for the barn with the championship.

Overall it was an excellent regatta and everyone raved about the great job that the Irish Boat Shop staff and Little Traverse Yacht Club membership did in hosting this event. Jon ’Who Has More Fun’ VanderMolen and the Gull Lake Star Fleet did a tremendous job of organizing even though the venue was 300 miles away and we are all looking forward to doing it again in the future.

report by Eric Lind
After yesterday’s wonderful conditions we awoke to light rain and cool, gray skies this morning with wind from the North. Reports that the wind was blowing out on the bay were not correct and we spent 3 frustrating hours with wind just not quite strong enough and not quite consistent enough to race.

We finally got a race started just after 2pm this afternoon. The wind was in the 7 – 8 range with some left over chop coming in from Lake Michigan. Lots of shifts brought lots of position changes between marks, but in the end the top 2 boats from Thursday, Merriman/Trinter & MacCausland/Murphy, fought each other hard for the top 2 spots.

The RC got another race off under the black flag after 2 general recalls and as the sky cleared the wind diminished making for more challenging conditions. Again it was Merriman first and MacCausland second and after 5 races with a throwout kicking in the standings show Merriman/Trinter in 1st with 4 pts and MacCausland/Murphy 2nd with 8 pts. In 3rd place, and leading the Masters Division, is Ched Proctor and Kip Gardner with 20 pts.

Tomorrow is the last day of the regatta and the wind is forecast at 6, building to 10, from the Southeast. With a 1400 cutoff time the chances of getting more than 2 races in are slim.

September 11th – by Eric Lind, Race Committee Chair
WOW!!! This has to have been one of the best days on the water that I can remember. We got 3 races in just over 4 hours and everyone is back at Irish Boat Shop enjoying some Bravo! beer.

All 3 races were 4 leg W/L with a 1.5 nm leg. Wind was in the low to mid teens during the first race and maybe some higher gusts as one mast was broken while races 2 & 3 saw the wind subside to the 9 – 12 range. Star Class veteran John MacCausland from Cooper River in New Jersey and crew Kevin Murphy put together 3 strong finishes of 3, 1, and 4 for a total of 8 points and an 8 point lead over Rick Merriman and crew Phil Trinter. In 3rd place is Star Class President Bill Allen with crew Brad Lichter at 17 points. We are hoping to get 3 more in tomorrow and 2 on Saturday to complete the championship.

Day two report by Barbara Beigel Vosbury
The forecast was for the wind to build and rumor had it that the wind would then clock. As with all regattas and venues, “it’s never like this here“. The wind started out around 15 kts with higher gusts and diminished to about 10 with gusts, but not so high.

John Koopman, Eric Lind and the great RC got three races off yesterday, playing catch up for the day before. Did I mention yesterday that this is a great venue? The waves were challenging and the skies were beautiful blue with white puffy clouds. The puffs blasted down the course with determination and the water that hit your face was refreshing.

The carnage was minimal, one mast, one pole and a few bruised egos, but that is to be expected with a fleet like this. Not as many boats as we would like to have but the talent is strong and the racing is fierce. One mistake and well, you know the story.

One great thing about smaller events is the camaraderie. You really get to know your competitors. We have some new members here, Jack Jennings, Dan Coughlin and Dave Irish. I hope that they have found our class to be as classy, friendly and competitive as we feel we are. Dave Irish last night described his impression of the Star as ‘intimate’. Everything is compact and right at your finger tips and it is the only way two men can spend so much time with a feminine object and get away with it!

Rick Merriman and Phil Trinter were the recipients of the Jack Daniels Trophy as winners of the first race.

The dinner at Bay Harbor Yacht Club was traditional Michigan food, corn on the cob, ribs, corn bread, everything from here and very yummy! Thank you to everyone who helped put this together.

Today we will be taking any junior that is on the dock for a spin in a Star, should be fun!

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Now it is time to release the hounds to see if they can find us! I hope you really did not take the time to read this.

Last weekend San Diego Yacht Club, and Etchells Fleet 13 hosted this event. Personally it was a challenging weekend as it was only the the 8th time I’ve sailed in the boats. Maybe I thought I was better than I am. When I bought my Etchells last year I was expecting to be able to finish in the middle of the local Fleet. I am now realizing that that expectation was a bit out of my reach. I have grown to respect all Etchells sailors. These boats have a lot of tricks, and it will take some time before we are ready to compete.

This became readily apparent on Saturday. We had two great starts, but managed to sail ourselves to the back of the fleet. After some discussions with those in the know after we were finished racing we found out that we had the boat too bound up. We need to ease the sheets, twist the main, and NEVER put the backstay on until we are in full hike mode.

So Sunday we leave the dock a bit more confident, match up with some boats before the start of racing, and find that we could point and maintain speed with these boats. So we decide we would sail conservatively, and not bang any corners; just try to get a better feel for our speed relative to the other boats. Little did we know it was a full “bang the corners” day! it did not matter which side you went, just do not go up the middle.

Well in retrospect we did accomplish some goals, and honestly we never were considered a contender in the regatta. Our goal is to slowly improve our boatspeed each regatta. We are now talking about hiring a coach a couple of times to help us with boat set-up, and boat handling. I just have to remember to think “baby steps”, and not get disappointed with seeing all of those boats a head of us.

Just about one time every Winter the weather conditions get in line with a major regatta here in San Diego. While this venue is known for its benign wind conditions, this past weekend proved to be the “exception” rather then “the rule”.

We raced our Etchells on the “B” course this past Friday through Sunday. While Friday did have the typical San Diego wind conditions, the NW swell preceding the weekend storm made conditions trying. With the air and water temperature in the mid-fifties (16C) keeping warm was also a challenge. Being new to the Etchells my weaknesses became glaring obvious in these conditions; besides driving rather poorly we also failed to set up the rig for the changing conditions. What I found was that a boat slightly off the pace, with an inexperienced driver soon finds its way to the back of the pack. It was a good thing it was the last race of the day, so that we did not hold up the next start!

Saturday was a completely different day, it was breeze on from the beginning, and colder! The swell had also grown to a forecasted 8-10 feet! This became a perfect test for the base-layers SLAM makes; I think I was wearing every Seamlessproduct they made. After our end to Friday we were eager to get out and prove we were worthy of being in this fleet. We were in the first bunch at the top mark, slipped a little on the run, then came back on the second beat. We were thinking we would have a solid finish on the last leg when all of a sudden we heard a great BANG as our boom vang separated. We limped to the finish with back to back DFL’s. We finished the day with two good finishes, and honestly it had to one of the best sailing days I have experienced in a long time. While I am still getting the hang of driving the boat (especially downwind), the sun was out and the breeze was on; not to mention the size of the swell going downwind. I heard someone mention it was like falling of a ten foot wall at times; there was nothing you could do to prevent the kite from being plastered to the forestay as you went screaming down the front side.

Sunday did not look so good at the start. There were thunderstorms and squalls all night long as the cold front passed through, so the beginning of the day was quite sunny and calm; with a huge NW swell left over from the prior couple of days. The breeze filled in, and we got a couple of decent races in; again I found my biggest weakness to be my downwind driving. We would get to the first top mark in good shape, but always lose a couple of boats on the downwind leg. This is something I will definitely have to figure out if I ever want to finish consistently at the top of the fleet!

All in all it was a good weekend. This was the first time I sailed the boat three days in a row, and it showed. We ended the regatta with a third by actually gaining a boat on the final downwind leg! I can not say enough about the SLAM gear we wore (and the Camet shorts with pads!), the base-layers kept us warm, and the RC Pray top and Long Johns kept us dry. The best was that feeling that I could compete in the Etchells Class if I kept working on it!