July 30th saw the final race of the 2005 Southern California Beneteau 40.7 high point series calendar, the annual Newport to San Diego race, hosted by BCYC
and SDYC. This year's race was a 65 mile straight shot starting immediately south of the Newport Beach break wall, and finishing at SD buoy 3, with no marks in
between.

Only 2 40.7's showed up for this year's race - First Light and Changes in Altitudes. First Light had stayed over in Newport Beach after the Crew of 2 Around
Catalina race, and CiA motored up Thursday night. The boats raced in class A, against a variety of 51 and 54 rated boats, plus a -54 Andrews 70. The race
started in a light westerly breeze a little too tight for a spinnaker. First Light started with their jib top reacher and moved quickly into the lead pack, while CiA
started with a genoa and fell back early. Within an hour of the start all the boats had popped spinnakers, and the rest of the day was spent in a glorious drag
race in gradually deepening winds that peaked at about 14 knots, stayed strong most of the afternoon, and were still blowing 7-9 at sunset. On First Light we
saw peak boat speeds right at 10 knots, and had a lot of 8-9 knots bursts on the waves. Unfortunately the wind never really got strong enough to surf, so
average speeds stayed in the 7 knot range (FL averaged 7.2 knots for the race).

Once the spinnakers came up there were very few passing lanes until the end. The SI's allowed boats to start motoring at 6:00 PM, which a number of boats in
the section used to move ahead as the wind lighted up. Both of the 40.7s stuck it out and sailed to the finish, with First Light finishing at 7:51, good for 4th place
and CiA 12 minutes behind at 8:03, landing them in 7th. No RC boat was provided at the finish, so boats self-timed their finishes at buoy 3.

Although the turnout was small and neither boat was able to do very well against the mixed fleet (which was won by a very fast Columbia 30), it was a nearly
perfect sailing day, with hours of light surfing under spinnaker and a finish before sunset.

CIA got off a late start, but we made up

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