SAILING : Title in Schock 35 Class Won by Schmidt, Gordon

UCLA psychology professor Dick Schmidt and his wife, Gwen Gordon, winners of the first three races, placed a tactical fifth Sunday to win the Schock 35 class in Audi/North Sails Race Week at Long Beach.

The event also was the Schock 35’s Pacific Coast Championship, and Schmidt and Gordon, sailing Outlier from the California Yacht Club, received the Audi Quattro Trophy for winning the most competitive class. Several of the 19 boats finished the races overlapped.

With steady winds of 10 to 12 knots for the fourth and final race, the committee sent the seven fleets of 133 boats on a 17.9-mile course through anchored tankers and barges in the outer harbor and then west to the Los Angeles Harbor entrance and back.

Lew Beery’s Andrews 43 It’s OK! from Balboa Yacht Club sailed faster than anyone, but with the lowest handicap couldn’t finish far enough ahead to place higher than fourth in Class A on corrected time. Greg Koch and Mike Wooten from the Long Beach YC won that class by sailing their Andrews 39 Allegiance to victories in the last three races.

Larry Harvey’s Abba Zaba Jab from the Alamitos Bay YC ran off a 2-1-1-1 series among 14 J-35s, as did Bill Huber in his Catalina 38 Cobra from LBYC.

Outlier carries a crew of 10 that is one of the oldest in the fleet, ranging in age from 29 to Schmidt’s 50.

Schmidt and Gordon, a computer programmer-statistician at UCLA, also are the reigning North American champions and won the class in the Midwinters last February.