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A crew heads its boat toward the second mark on Saturday. Sentinel photo by Bill Lovejoy

Santa Cruz skipper guides crew to pair of regatta wins

SENTINEL CORRESPONDENT

SANTA CRUZ — Jack McDermott was looking for some improvement from himself and the crew aboard his boat Adventure.

The Santa Cruz-based McDermott got all of the above and then some.

After a fifth-place finish Friday, Adventure, skippered by McDermott, swept two races Saturday in second-day action of the 2001 Catalina 30 National Regatta.

The two wins vaulted Adventure into a first-place tie with Odessey, a chartered boat skippered by Max Munger of Annapolis, Md., heading into today’s final race.

Munger, who won this event in 1999, is competing in his 10th National Regatta.

He led Odessey, a boat owned by Santa Cruz’s Todd Johnson, to a second-place finish in Friday’s race and then posted a third- and second-place showing on Saturday.

Like many of the Santa Cruz County residents competing in the Regatta, this is McDermott’s first national event.

A project manager for PG&E, the 46-year-old McDermott said Ken Dempsey, an Adventure crewmember and a fellow PG&E worker, provided some extra inspiration on Saturday.

"This morning, it was Ken’s birthday," McDermott said. "I told him that for his birthday we’d get two wins today. It was just wishful thinking.

"But then we were able to give Ken a good birthday present and keep the local guys looking good. (Today) will be an extremely competitive race, but (on Saturday), Adventure ruled."

Katana, skippered by Santa Cruz’s Scott Lighthall, won Friday’s race and currently is tied for second-place with Alley Cat, skippered by race director Greg Haws.

Saturday’s races took place amidst very different conditions.

The early race consisted of a 3.98-mile, sausage-shaped route with a beginning wind speed of 11 knots.

"We won the first race over the top of Alley Cat," McDermott said. "Greg sailed a remarkable race, so I felt blessed to win."

After handicaps were factored in, Adventure’s winning time was one hour, 15 minutes and 16 seconds.

Alley Cat was second with a corrected time of 1:15:54. Odessey finished in 1:19:09.

After a 20-minute break from the time of the finish of the last boat, the next race was then postponed for a short period of time due to a lack of wind.

Light wind conditions were quickly rectified when the starting line for the 4.35-mile course was moved out to a mile south of the Yacht Harbor.

In fact, the wind of 37 knots posed a different set of challenges as one boat’s main sail tore and another was completely dismasted by the powerful wind.

McDermott and his crew literally threw caution to the wind to make up for their poor start in the second race.

"We had two false starts and then we missed the start," McDermott said. "If we weren’t in last place, we were close to it, but we battled back.

"We worked very, very, very hard to point the boat as high as we could into the wind. We decided to take the wind on and we were getting drenched. Then my crew turned on the afterburners on the last leg and we pulled away."

Sirena, a Sausalito-based boat owned and skippered by Aptos’ David Zucker is alone in third place.

Debonair, skippered by Santa Cruz’s Patrick White, is fourth and the all-female crew of Local Cat, skippered by Krista Lighthall, Scott’s wife, is fifth.

Although Munger said he would like to be all alone in first place heading into today’s final race, his first-place tie is impressive considering he’s never sailed in this area before.

"I like it here," said the 57-year-old Munger, a federal employee of the U.S. Navy. "It’s wonderful. It’s more wind than you get most places.

"We’ve done everything we could do. One of the local crew who’s come aboard has given us excellent information on where to go and the crew is working very hard.

"Tomorrow, we’re going to be going after Adventure. We don’t care about anyone else. I need him to finish really badly or I need a first."

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