It’s Anchors Aweigh Among UCI’s Sailors : Sailing: Second-ranked Anteater team receives help from the Naval Academy.

UC Irvine’s sailing team is ranked No. 2 in the country, thanks in large part to the U.S. Navy. But Navy publicists aren’t going to jump on this story. There is no recruitment commercial here.

Nick Adamson and Randy Lake, the top two skippers on Irvine’s team, arrived at UCI from the Naval Academy. They loved sailing . . . and hated sailoring.

Lake, a graduate of La Mesa Grossmont High, took one look at the sailing facilities at Annapolis and decided the life of a plebe couldn’t be that bad.

Three months later, he left to enroll at Irvine.

“I decided I hated the whole military concept,” he said, smiling. “I got accepted, and it was a free education and great boats, and I figured I might as well give it a shot. I knew it would be tough, but I just needed more freedom and flexibility.”

Adamson, a native of Dallas, stuck it out an entire year.

“I went because I thought maybe I wanted to be a pilot,” Adamson said. “But you have to really want to be there, and I decided I didn’t really want to be there.

“Let’s just say it wasn’t the best year of my life. It was way too regimented and regulated for me.”

Life in Irvine’s navy isn’t all the other kind of R&R; either, but at least there is nobody telling you what to do. Or even offering to help, for that matter.

If they were looking to do their own thing, Lake and Adamson landed in the right place. If you want to race for Irvine, all you have to do is carry your boat up to the trailer--that’s hooked to your car--and drive to the site. Don’t forget your gas credit card.

Or, if it’s a national competition in the East, where boats are provided, all you have to do is call your travel agent, buy your ticket and pay for your own room and meals.

When Irvine sailors make a trip, at least they’re motivated. They’re determined to get their money’s worth and recently, they’ve been getting a lot out of their “vacation” dollars.

In November, Adamson finished third in the Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Assn. single-handed national championships at the Newport Harbor Yacht Club; Irvine was host. Later in the month, Adamson and crew Craig Moss and Brad Haney took second in the ICYRA sloop nationals at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

In February, at the prestigious College of Charleston Spring Invitational, Adamson and crew Lisa Griffith were a disappointing seventh in the A Division. But Lake and Sarah Robertson easily won the B Division, racing in 420s, a double-handed (two-person) boat that Irvine skippers rarely get a chance to sail.

“I think you would have to describe that victory as the surprise of the year, for other schools and for us,” Irvine Coach Jon Pinckney said. “I mean Randy, who usually alternates with Geoff Becker (as B division skipper), was sailing against older guys who have been sailing those boats every day since they were 8 years old. Randy had sailed the boat three times before the regatta and for him to win as convincingly as he did, it’s a huge, huge surprise.”

It’s hard for Irvine sailors to surprise anymore. In 1988, Pinckney helped Irvine win the national championship. The East Coast sailing community probably won’t be as shocked if it happened again.

“We certainly weren’t given much respect before then,” Pinckney said. “It’s very difficult to compete with those teams. We’re so isolated. They get at each other every weekend and they feel comfortable sailing together in nationals. I think it’s a big advantage to know your opponents’ habits.

“We compete in boats that we don’t usually sail. They have support. It’s a lot to overcome, but we have the talent.”

Just a couple of tacks up the Lido Channel, six alumni of the Irvine sailing team are competing in the U.S. Olympic trials this week.

The tradition goes on. The same cannot be said for the funding.

“I’m not sure how they can decide to give all that money to a basketball team that sucks and cut us completely off,” Robertson said. “I mean $30,000 would be enough for us for a whole year. Just to pay some travel for the people who can’t afford it.”

Most minor sports at Irvine have felt the cut of budget trimming and it’s been a slow, going-going-gone process for the sailing team.

“My first year here, the school paid for our transportation and housing and food when we traveled,” said Adamson, who, like Lake, arrived at Irvine in the fall of 1988. “The second year, it was just transportation and housing. The last two years, we’ve been pretty much on our own.

“Both my parents and Randy’s parents have been great about helping us pay to travel, so the money we can raise will go for the people who can’t afford it.”

Robertson, an aspiring opera singer who enrolled at Irvine because of the music program, sat on Irvine’s dock just north of the Balboa Bay Club, a warm afternoon sun and brisk breeze in her face. She admitted that it’s hard to complain about sailing at Irvine.

There’s no funding but it’s still fun.

“It’s such a great place to learn to sail,” she said. “And we love to sail. Most of us spend the summer here teaching kids to sail.”

Adamson loves to sail. He also loves to win.

“What we lack in funding and resources, we make up for in preparation and talent,” he said.

And the talent pool is still growing. The latest addition to the team is Jennifer Brownings.

She transferred from the Naval Academy.