Media Contact: Louise Ann Noeth 805 - Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club

Media Contact: Louise Ann Noeth 805.445.8414 Cell: 805.312.0893
landspeed@adelphia.net
Race Contact: John Dunbar 805.604.7497 Fax: 805.604.7498
mobyjohn@aol.com
Photo Editors: High-resolution color photography & event logo art is available.
News Editors: Advance interviews possible in-person, by phone or ship-to-shore radio.
High Speed, Stable Press Boat Available on Race Day . . . We’ll make your deadline!
27th ANNUAL MCNISH CLASSIC YACHT RACE
Channel Islands Harbor, CA – Those dashing wood darlings of the Pacific are making plans to sail in
the 27 th running of the McNish Classic Yacht Race on Saturday, August 7th, 2004. One of four
gingerly contested regattas on the western seaboard; the race attracts a merry mix of veteran and
novice sailors.
Sponsored for more than a quarter of a century by the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club, the living
history fleet consists of sloops, cutters, ketches, yawls and schooners designed before 1952 that range
in size from a diminutive 17 feet to a gob smacking 82-feet.
Defending Strathmore Cup champion Foxen, the John Alden designed 40-foot sloop named for the
seafaring pioneer Benjamin Foxen, who became part of California history by helping Gen. John C.
Fremont take Santa Barbara from Mexico for the new California Republic, is owned and sailed by
Tracy and Peter Caras of Ventura.
“It was a glorious day,” recalled the perky Captain Caras who relied the spinnaker-trimming skills of
10-year old Charlie Mellor from San Deigo, “If we get 15 to 20 knots of wind this year, the fleet
would do well to watch out. In this race, we feel our traditional boat is competitive and not a odd
wooden duck in a modern design fleet. ”
There is some scuttlebutt on deck that a pair of 65-foot schooners -- Dirigo II and Curlew -- will
blow into port for the first time, but the early entries are:
From Ventura . . . From San Diego . . . From Santa Barbara . . .
40-foot Foxen 71-foot Dauntless
38-foot Charity
40-foot Elusive II 59-foot Sally
65-foot Orient
33-foot Maggie J 70-foot Samarang 36-foot Savannah
40-foot South Pacific 49-foot Pacifica
36-foot Panacea
From Los Angeles . . .
40-foot Erica
70-foot Alsumar
23-foot Toco
44-foot Flirt
From Morro Bay . . .
From Oxnard . . .
46-foot Cheerio II
43-foot Vignette II
47-foot Fairwinds
42-foot Hilda B. Sly

Page 2/McNish Classic Yacht Race
Conceived in 1977, the race is sailed on a triangular course in the waters just outside Channel Islands
Harbor and is designed so that each classic sailboat has an equal chance of winning due to an
ingenious, specially developed handicap system devised for classics. The computerized program,
loosely based on the modern PHRF system, incorporates the entrant’s historical performance data as
well as prevailing weather conditions for a pre-determined course.
Skippers with only basic sailing and seamanship knowledge can be competitive. The course is laid out
with the traditional yacht in mind with the major portion of the race sailed off-the-wind. Using an
inverted start method in addition to the handicap, the goal is to get all the boats to finish at the same
time, which creates a dramatic visual climax at the harbor break wall.
2003 Strathmore Cup Winner Rafted up on PCYC docks in Channel Islands Harbor
FOXEN
’03 Best Elapsed Time Dick McNish’s Cheerio II Schooner Dauntless
Alsumar

McNish Classic Yacht Race Facts
� The Oldest Boat ever entered was the late Gerry Burch’s,
century-old schooner Los Amigos, which raced up until the
time it sank in Ventura Harbor.
� Most Distant Port honors goes to the 1895 ketch Oscar Tybring
from Norway.
� Ben Harper’s Freedom was the first yacht to win the
Strathmore Cup in 1977.
� The smallest was Harvey Swindahl’s 17-foot schooner Mud
Pie. When 82-foot Kelpie, a magnificent 1928 schooner from
Dana Point was the largest classic yacht to compete.
� Dick McNish, Somis, CA, has also sailed every race, only with different boats, Cheerio II and
Valiant, but has yet to win back the Strathmore Cup that he donated. The silver screen
swashbuckling heartbreaker Errol Flynn once owned Cheerio II.
� Ted and Vicki Davis, owners of Alsumar, a stunningly swift 70-foot yawl, use the race as a pseudo
family reunion each year. They have so many friends and relatives on board that the “rail meat” could
form an unbroken line from bow to stern.
� One year, the celebrated cruising couple, Lynn and Larry Pardee adjusted their course just so that they
could enter the race.
� Kathy Roche, owner of the famed cutter Orient built in 1937, finished a two-year “derelict-todarling”
restoration in Channel Islands Harbor to compete in the 2001 McNish Classic -- the first
time the yacht had competed in 30 years.
� East Coast built Baruna, a 72-foot yawl, was long-time racing partner of Orient. The boats were
reunited after 30 plus years at the 24 th McNish Classic. Former owners of Baruna and Orient formed
the Barient Winch Company, the prototypes of which are still aboard each boat.
Backgrounder Fact:
Dick McNish is up to his gunwales with sailing duties – even at home in landlocked Somis. Using an
antenna three-times higher than his home, McNish is inventory manager KB6USC for the Pacific
Seafarer's Net, a network of volunteer Amateur Radio Operators that handles radio and internet email
communication traffic between sailing and motoring vessels operating on all oceans and land-based
parties worldwide; he inventories boats so that emergency information can be passed onto Search and
Rescue operations such as the USCG in the event the vessel has an emergency.
Other communications traffic consists of daily position reporting and automatic posting of positions
on several websites, message handling via email relays, Health and Welfare traffic, search and rescue
coordination and phone patch services for vessels throughout the oceans.