FOUST Newsletter
JAN 2012

IN THIS ISSUE:
Introduction / Regatta Results / Featured Alum: Heather Funkhouser / Sailing Opportunity: Islands Race / Regatta Schedule


Freshmen Peter Bailey and Zack Chin enjoying a Hawaii sunset at the PJ Wenner Memorial Rainbow Invitational Regatta. Help us get the women's team to Hawaii for PCCs!

introduction...

Dear Friends,

Our first issue of 2012 includes results from Long Beach, Hawaii, and San Diego, and a profile of recent alum Heather Funkhouser ('09), who just completed a Pacific crossing, and the spring regatta schedule for the team. We're also passing along a sailing opportunity with Tom Hartmann ('04) and the Newport Sea Base youth racing team on February 17-18.

We also have some news to share: Judge Ryan ('14), who last year won A Division at PCCs as a freshman (among other accomplishments), has transferred from UCLA to Brown this semester. While we at FOUST are sorry to see him go, we wish him the best with his new team, and hope that he survives those New England winters despite his SoCal roots.

If you can, please consider helping out with our current fundraising goal: helping the women's team make it to Hawaii for PCCs this April. No one should have to pay out of pocket to get to a championship regatta, but the team traditionally has not had the funds to cover airfare. At approximately $400 per round trip ticket, the total cost to get a team of four there and back is $1600. We're just getting started - so far the FOUST community has chipped in $100 - but I'm confident that we can come together, meet this goal, and get the girls to their championship.

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, you can find instructions here. Please also contact us to confirm your gift so that we can effectively track our progress towards this goal.

Finally, as always, please take a moment to pay your 2012 dues if you have not yet done so, or join FOUST if you are not yet a member.

We will hopefully be announcing a date for the 2012 Alumni Regatta soon, so get your calendar ready and stay tuned.

Sam Wheeler
UCLA Sailing Team, Class of 2008
Vice President, Friends of the UCLA Sailing Team
www.foustsupport.net
@SailFOUST

regatta results...

The Bruins took 17th out 29 teams at the Rose Bowl Regatta on January 7-8, technically the last regatta of the fall season. With some of the best teams in the country showing up to Long Beach to take advantage of the recruiting potential of the affiliated high school fleet, UCLA's finish was good enough for 7th in the PCCSC and 9th on the west coast. This was Judge Ryan's ('14) last regatta sailing for UCLA. He and longtime crew Erica Parker ('14) split time with Peter Bailey ('15) and Louise Lehman ('14) in B division, and snagged a second place finish in race five. Team captains Billy Edwards ('12) and Emelia Pelliccio ('13) split skippering duties in A, with Carly Olenick ('13) crewing.


The fleet in Keehi Lagoon, Hawaii, before a start.

Billy, Peter, and Zack Chin ('15) traveled to Honolulu on January 21-23 for the PJ Wenner Memorial Rainbow Invitational Regatta. Sailing with Ali Tenn ('13), on loan from UH to round out the team, the Bruins finished ninth out of thirteen teams. These guys paid their own way to get to Hawaii, which for an amazing weekend at an invitational regatta is probably how it should be. But championships are a different story - competitors should not have to pay out of pocket to be there, and you can't borrow a sailor from another team if only three people are able to buy a plane ticket. Please consider donating to help UCLA send a team back to Hawaii for Women's PCCs in April.


Peter Bailey, Zack Chin, and Billy Edwards at Rainbow.

Most recently, the Jeff Simon Memorial Regatta, technically two single day regattas, marked the beginning of qualifiers for coed PCCs. The UCLA coed team took ninth of twenty teams at South 1, with the women's team right behind them in tenth. On Sunday, the Bruins coed finished a solid fifth in South 2, with women's in twelfth. Overall, UCLA is currently sixth in the PCCSC southern district, with only one point separating them from UCSD and the final qualifying position for PCCs. Three more regattas are left in the qualifiers series, so the Bruins have plenty of time to pull ahead and secure that berth.

featured alum: heather funkhouser...

By Neha Bazaj ('10), FOUST Treasurer


Heather at the helm of Sea Angel, her Hinckley Pilot, in San Francisco Bay.

Heather Funkhouser grew up in the Bay Area sailing big boats with her family. Her parents owned and operated a marine biology/sailing summer camp for teenagers in the Sea of Cortez (down in the Gulf of California), so every summer was spent sailing and exploring that area. She did a bit of racing in high school, but it wasn't until she got to UCLA in 2005 that Heather really made the switch to dinghys.

After graduating in 2009, however, Heather switched back over to big boat sailing, which has proven to be her true niche. Like many UCLA sailors, Heather was itching to travel after graduation. With her Coast Guard Merchant Maine 50 ton license in-hand, she left for New Zealand on a working/holiday visa. In the two-and-a-half years since she graduated, Heather has logged over 13,500 offshore nautical miles.


Heather (second from left) and the Carina crew crossing the equator.

Just four months into her travels, she got her first gig crewing aboard a 25 meter ketch named Evohe. From New Zealand to Tahiti, the Evohe acted as a support vessel for traditional Maori Vaka (double-hulled sailing canoes). From there the adventures continued. Six months on the Cook Islands, then onto a racer/cruiser named Dawn Star headed to Australia, "settling down" in Sydney for 6 months working in the Sydney Harbor, and finally back on the water in the 48 foot Carina.

Aboard Carina, Heather sailed from St. Thomas in the Caribbean through the Panama Canal, and then on to Sydney via the Galapagos and Tahiti. They made the trip in just 3 months, with 3-week crossings between ports. On calm days Heather and the rest of the crew would go for a dip in the middle of the Pacific, and at night the stars were out in full force. "One of the highlights during 2am watches were when dolphins would race alongside the boat, their paths outlined in the phosphorescence... The experience of beating upwind, double-reefed, with waves breaking straight into the cockpit is the biggest adrenaline rush imaginable. I LOVED IT!"


Carina on a beat.

Heather is now back in the Bay Area, living on her boat (Sea Angel) in Sausalito. It's a classic Hinckley Pilot built in 1969, and Heather is giving it a lot of TLC ("work on a boat is never done!"). She takes it out for charters on the Bay and also teaches lessons - following in her mother's footsteps, who has been a sailing instructor since her 20s. She's hoping to take Sea Angel down to Mexico in the near future, and she always has her "eyes and ears open for the next offshore sailing adventure! ...I am keen to take part in a complete circumnavigation trip!"

sailing opportunity: islands race...

Former UCLA captain Tom Hartmann ('04) is looking for a female crew member to join him and the Newport Sea Base youth racing team for the third annual NHYC/SDYC Islands Race on an IMX 38. The team includes two girls, so they need an adult female on board as well.

The race starts near Long Beach on Friday, February 17, rounds Catalina and San Clemente, and finishes at San Diego Yacht Club. Tom and the Sea Base team placed first out of 19 boats in their last with three youth sailors rotating at the helm, so you can expect to do pretty well. If you're interested or know anyone who might be, contact FOUST and we'll put you in touch with Tom.

Need crew for an upcoming race? Let us know and we'll put an announcment in the next newsletter.

spring regatta schedule...

If you can make it out to any of the regattas this spring, there's nothing the team appreciates more than having alumni and fans there to cheer them on. That and new boats. And airfare. A complete schedule is available on the PCCSC website.

Jan. 21-22 -- PJ Wenner Memorial Rainbow Invitational (UH, Honolulu)
Jan. 28-29 -- Jeff Simon Memorial/South 1-2 (UCSD, Mission Bay)
Feb. 11-12 -- Bryson Women's (Stanford, Redwood City)
Feb. 25-26 -- South 3-4 (UCI, Newport Harbor)
Mar. 3-4 -- McIntyre Team Race (Stanford, Redwood City)
Mar. 3-4 -- Cal Team Race (Cal, Treasure Island)
Mar. 24-25 -- South 5 (USC, Long Beach)
Mar. 31-Apr. 1 -- St. Francis Invitational (Stanford, St. Francis Yacht Club)
Apr. 14-15 -- Team Race PCCs (Stanford, Redwood City)
Apr. 21-22 -- Women's PCCs (UH, Keehi Lagoon) ***Fundraising Goal***
Apr. 28-29 -- Coed PCCs (UCSB, SBYC)
TBA - UCLA Alumni Regatta

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