Alchemy Has a Golden Touch

The ULDB 70 sled fleet has been virtually one-design competition for Santa Cruz 70s from the time Bill Lee built the first in Northern California in the ‘80s. The new Andrews-Dencho 70s might change that.

The SC 70s set the pace as the feathery, flat-bottomed 70-footers--ULDB stands for Ultra-Light Displacement Boat--dominated the offshore races to Hawaii and Mexico. Those races are essentially off-wind or downwind-- downhill, sailors say, hence “sled.” With some rig and ballast adjustments they even became fun to sail in buoy races, such as the California Cup out of the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey, a recent event won by the new Alchemy.

Alchemy was designed by Alan Andrews and built by Dennis Choate’s Dencho Marine in Long Beach for Dick and Mary Compton of Santa Barbara. Andrews-Dencho 70s seem to hit the water flying. Last fall they built their first sled, Victoria, for Long Beach’s Mike Campbell, who placed it second in its class in the Long Beach-to-Cabo San Lucas race a week after it was launched.

Last month, in its first regatta, Alchemy, despite a premature start in the first race, cracked the SC 70s’ seven-year monopoly on the Cal Cup with finishes of 5-3-1-1-2 in the three-day series on Santa Monica Bay. Nelson-Marek and Reichel-Pugh creations occasionally have intruded on the SC 70s’ dominance, but no other design has posed as great a threat to the dynasty.

Earlier this season, Alchemy was only about a week old when it started the Newport-to-Ensenada race. Several hundred pounds light before getting its International Offshore Rule rating, it sailed with a Performance Handicap Racing Fleet handicap and swept class and fleet trophies, then came home and set a record in the Hard Way Race from Santa Barbara around Santa Cruz Island to Ventura.

North Sails’ Robbie Haines steered Alchemy in the Cal Cup, having been left without a boat when Roy Disney took Pyewacket to Europe after its San Diego-to-Manzanillo victory earlier this year. Doug Rastello called tactics and several others from the Pyewacket crew pulled ropes, along with Compton’s Santa Barbara regulars.

SC 70s were second and third--Ed McDowell’s Grand Illusion, with Rick Matzinger at the helm, and Brack Duker’s Evolution, with Danny Schiff. Grand Illusion lost its rig two days earlier in a Wednesday night tuneup race and had to replace it with one lent by Disney.

Grand Illusion leads Evolution after three of nine events in the sleds’ season series, 45-41. Les Crouch’s Maverick, an N/M 68 that was fourth in the Cal Cup, is next with 37 points. Alchemy, with 18, didn’t make the first two events but has time to catch up.

Andrews works out of a small office in a marine complex of the Long Beach Marina at Alamitos Bay. He had strong credentials for designing fast boats for the International Measurement System (IMS) creature-comfort class that seems to be displacing IOR as the offshore fleet of choice.

Andrews’ first two sleds, Victoria and Alchemy, will sail against each other for the first time in the sled class of Long Beach Race Week out of the Long Beach YC this weekend.

Sailing Notes

NOTEWORTHY--Redondo Beach’s King Harbor Yacht Club will conduct the Tom Collier Memorial Regatta on Saturday for small one-design, catamaran and PHRF classes. Proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society. Collier, a club member, was a former Olson 30 national champion who died of cancer at 31 this year. Details: (310) 376-2459. . . . San Diego Yacht Club will be the host club for the Single/Double-Handed Coronado Islands Race for boats more than 20 feet long June 20. The race will benefit the Trauma Research and Education Foundation. Details: (619) 222-1103. . . . Harbor College will offer “The Complete Sailing Course” seven Saturdays, July 11-Aug. 22, 3 p.m. All lessons are on the water. Fee: $295. Details: (310) 518-3510.

YOUTH--Twenty-five Southern California boys and girls 19 and younger will be among 167 competing in three classes in the U.S. Sailing-Nautica Youth Championships June 19-26 at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach. Six were members of the U.S. team that placed second to France in the IYRU-Nautica World Youth Sailing Championships in Portugal in April. Competition will be in single- and double-handed Lasers and on sailboards.

EVENTS--Southern California’s two top multiple-fleet events of the year are scheduled this month--Long Beach Yacht Club’s Long Beach Race Week Friday-Sunday and Bruce Golison’s Trimble Navigation-North Sails Race Week June 26-28, with headquarters at the Clarion Edgewater Hotel in east Long Beach. LBYC expects more than 100 boats in seven classes, including eight or nine sleds and a new class for vintage wooden PC 32s from the ‘40s and ‘50s. Golison expects to have more than 125 boats in Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) classes rating from 24 to 174, plus one-design classes for J-35s, Schock 35s and, for the first time, J-24s, which will be prepping for their North Americans two weeks later.

RESULT--Balboa Yacht Club, with sailmaker Dave Ullman steering Ed Cummins’ Bold Forbes, took the Lipton Cup away from neighbor Newport Harbor Yacht Club at San Diego. Crews from 12 clubs sailed J-35s. Ullman had a first, second and sixth to edge King Harbor Yacht Club by one-quarter point. California Yacht Club was third.

OLYMPICS--To summarize the U.S. team: men’s 470, Morgan Reeser, Miami, Fla., and crew Kevin Burnham, Coral Gables; women’s 470, J.J. Isler, San Diego, and crew Pam Healy, San Francisco; Finn, Brian Ledbetter, San Diego; Europe, Julia Trotman, Syosset, N.Y.; Tornado, Randy Smyth, Mary Esther, Fla., and crew Keith Notary, Merritt Island, Fla.; men’s sailboard, Mike Gebhardt, Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.; women’s sailboard, Lanee Butler, San Juan Capistrano; Soling, Kevin Mahaney, Bangor, Me., and crew Jim Brady, Annapolis, and Doug Kern, Austin, Tex.; Star, Mark Reynolds, San Diego, and crew Hal Haenel, Malibu.

Ledbetter, Gebhardt and Reynolds-Haenel also were on the ’88 team. Reynolds-Haenel won a silver medal, Gebhardt a bronze. Smyth won a silver in ’84 with crew Jay Glaser. The Flying Dutchman trials will be at Marblehead, Mass., starting Saturday. . . . Isler and Healy dominated their class of 35 boats in the Spa Regatta in Holland that included many Olympic competitors. They won their first four races and were able to sit out the last.

MATCH RACING--The International Yacht Racing Union’s latest Omega world rankings after the America’s Cup: 1. Chris Dickson, New Zealand, 2,696 points; 2. Russell Coutts, New Zealand, 2,623; 3. Peter Isler, San Diego, 2,265; 4. Eddie Warden-Owen, Wales, 2,135; 5. Peter Gilmour, Australia, 2,084; 6. Ed Baird, U.S., 1,988; 7. Rod Davis, New Zealand, 1,978; 8. Paul Cayard, San Francisco, 1,858; 9. Bertrand Pace, France, 1,850; 10. Jesper Bank, Denmark, 1,804. Some sailors who don’t compete on the circuit gained rankings off their Cup performances. Dennis Conner is 32nd and Buddy Melges 36th. The top 10 are expected to compete in the Mazda World Championships at Long Beach Aug. 18-22.