The 2019 Helly Hansen National Offshore One Design (NOOD) Regatta made a splash in San Diego over March 15-17 weekend. The NOOD Regatta San Diego was the second in a series of 5 national regattas and 1 international regatta. 180 Marine organized a fleet of six trimarans with skippers and crew!
Participants filtered in on Thursday and Friday, arriving from New Jersey, Missouri, Texas, Utah, Washington, Colorado, and Southern California. 180 Marine organized a race practice day on Friday to give sailing teams the opportunity to prepare for the one-day race on Saturday. Over the weekend, fleet members admired, boarded, and discussed multihulls ranging from F82R, F28, C31, and the newest designs the Corsair 970 and Corsair 760. New Corsair 760R owners, Michael, and Maureen Acker, raced with Richard Allen on the Corsair 760 and piloted their new spinnaker during the race.
Wind conditions were great, it was a beautiful day!
The trimaran fleet comprised of skippers with a wide range of sailing experience, seasoned and green crew, crew new to multihull sailing, and owners awaiting delivery of their own new Corsair. Mark Berdan generously hosted 3 boats at the Silver Gate Yacht Club. Mark Allen of Uinta Brewing Company was the beer sponsor for the NOODS and 180 Marine.
The NOOD multihull class began the race using a pursuit start just off Shelter Island in the San Diego Bay. PHRF ratings were applied to determine the starting order of the boats. Mark Berdan’s F82R was the first multihull to start, while JT Cody’s C970 was last to pass the Starting Line Committee Boat. The North Sails Rally – Multihull class followed the Circle C – South Bay Course C, heading just east of Point Loma to round the windward mark before reaching south toward the leeward mark in proximity to the Naval Amphibious Base and Coronado Bridge. The course allowed the sailors to beat to windward, reach for a distance and run under spinnaker. Wind speed at the start was 3 to 5 knots and gradually built to 12 knots.
In the multihull fleet, Mark Berdan, of San Diego, helmed his Farrier F82R, Uneven Keel, to a race win. “We were really excited because we had six trimarans today, and we seldom get that many down here,” said Berdan. “ The Corsair dealer Richard Allen organized to get the boats here, so it was great having a fleet of our own out there. Congratulations to Mark Berdan and his crew on a first-place finish. View some NOOD regatta footage of Mark’s F82R (10:41 timestamp) and Richard Allen’s Corsair 760 (11:16 timestamp). While UnEven Keel finished first ahead of the other boats, the lead was tighter and changed numerous times for boats vying for the other finishes. For instance, Glen Hackemer, a crew member aboard Peter Lucas' Flexible Flyer commented, "I felt we got in sync as the race went on. We passed Callisto III on the second leg and had about a 3 minute lead around the leeward mark. The positions tightened up in the final leg when Flexible Flyer took a deeper course than Callisto III, causing our boat to overstand the finish and lose to Callisto III by 10 to 15 seconds."
Participation of a record number of trimarans in the North Sails Rally – Multihull class aligned with Sailing World’s original vision for the NOOD, which was to promote the growing interest in racing one-design keelboats. It also fulfilled 180 Marine’s goal to help multihull teams develop essential sailing skills and knowledge and to have fun getting to know the great trimaran community at the San Diego NOOD Regatta.
Thanks to all skippers and crew for traveling to this action-packed event. We hope you made some new and lasting friendships and learned some new boating skills along the way!
Big thanks to Betsy Hackemer and Leslie Gabriel for reporting on this fantastic event!
If you have any questions or suggestions on building the trimaran community in Southern California we'd love to hear from you!
Contact: Richard Allen / richard@180marine.com
or Mark Berdan / mark@berdanbenefits.com