YACHTING : San Diego Women Running 2-3 in Europe-Class Racing : Festival: Weight disadvantages haven’t held back Camet, Willits going into final races today off Long Beach.

The reigning American featherweight and the heavyweight of Europe-class yacht racing agree on one thing:

Their bodies just aren’t designed for this kind of thing.

At 5-feet-10 and 146 pounds, Giselle Camet is too heavy. At 5-7 and 115 pounds, Deborah Willits is too small. Yet each won a race in the second day of Europe yacht racing--six races are spread over three days--at the U.S. Olympic Festival.

Going into today’s final regattas at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach, Camet, winner of Tuesday’s first race in stronger winds, and Willits, who won the first in light wind, are in second and third place, respectively. They trail leader Nancy Haberland of Satellite Beach, Fla., who took two firsts Monday and a second Tuesday before falling apart in the fourth and finishing 12th in a field of 13.

“I’m the smallest person out there,” said Willits, a San Diego State graduate and part-time sailor. “It makes a big difference. It’s an advantage in light air and a detriment in heavy, where I really get rolled by the bigger girls. But they can say the same thing about me in light air. It all averages out anyway.”

The law of averages lent Willits a hand in that third race of the series, in which she was trailing Haberland until Willits made a tactical decision on the last of the six legs that paid off.

Haberland and Katy Pilley went one way, and Willits went the other.

“About 100 yards from the finish, there was a light shift and I got ahead on the last beat,” Willits said. “Basically, it was whoever could get to the left and hope no one’s going to run you down.”

No one did. In fact, Haberland was so shaken by the finish, she said it ruined her concentration for the day’s final race.

“After that,” Haberland said, “my head wasn’t in the racing.”

In the second race Tuesday--the fourth race of the series--Camet, a graduate of USDHS and an engineering major at UC San Diego, worked her way from the back of the pack, then capitalized when leader Allie Rowe capsized on the final leg.

Camet, 19, prefers the catch-up style of racing. “I’d rather pass boats then have to wait for them to chase me,” she said.

This time she didn’t have to. Camet got out fast and was in the perfect position to take the lead when Rowe tumbled.

“I got a good start for once,” she said. “I was third on the first mark, moved up to second and was there when Allie capsized.”

Camet and Willits agreed that competition in the festival is unusually tight--the women have changed their positions on the course often throughout the first two days--and if you’re not completely focused, you’ll get passed.

“The leads have changed so much,” Camet said. “You really have to concentrate. If you stay with it and the wind shifts, you can make a move. But you really have to stay 100% alert.”

The changes make for more interesting racing, according to Willits, 26.

“It makes it more fun. It’s better than having a parade.”

Camet, a native of Argentina, grew up sailing 13-foot Lasers, a boat more compatible to her height. The Europe--an 11-foot-long singlehanded centerboard dinghy--cramps her legs as well as her style.

“My legs are too big to put anyplace,” she said. “If you’re short and strong, these are good boats for you. But you have to be the right size. I’m just too tall.”

And too busy to spend all her time perfecting her sailing skills. Camet practiced only five or six times for the festival and she doesn’t expect that trend to change.

Camet, representing the San Diego Yacht Club, is the new captain of UCSD’s sailing club, but the Tritons--who this year broke into the top 20 for the first time--have a long way to go before becoming a sailing powerhouse.

“I would like to help make it a better team, but with school, it’s too hard to practice five days a week and keep up with your studies,” she said. “If we did that, we’d never get out of school.”

Besides, she is having fun experimenting with other sailing venues. Later this summer she will skipper a three-man crew at the Governor’s Cup.

Sailing Notes

Kevin Quan, a recent La Jolla High graduate, is seventh after two days of competition in the Men’s Lechner Division II Sailboard. Quan, 17, finished sixth and ninth in Tuesday’s races. Quan said he will be attending Tufts University, in Boston, because of its strong sailing program. Included on his summer sailing schedule are the Lido 14 National races in San Diego and a regatta in Canada.